Josh Norris' Finishing Ability is Flourishing
A lot of the discussion in recent weeks has centred around Tim Stützle’s transition to the middle and the unmistakable qualitative and quantitative improvements in his game.
I discussed some of those positive changes earlier in the month, but The Athletic’s Ian Mendes penned an awesome piece detailing how Stützle essentially has a full season’s worth of NHL experience under his belt — contrasting it favorably with the performance of other high draft selections of the modern era.
I won’t spoil Mendes’ findings here, but you definitely want to check it out and support his work.
The headline of this article gives the gist of this piece away, but another Senators centre recently surpassed the 82-games threshold for his career.
Josh Norris has played 87 career games for the Senators over parts of three NHL seasons. If we ignore the three-game sample from Norris’ 2019-20 season, the Michigan native has registered 31 goals and 57 points over his first 82 NHL games as an NHL regular. (Note: Norris put up zero points in 2019-20 and was held pointless in his last two games.)
They are certainly arbitrary endpoints and Norris’ game logs are definitely fragmented, but scoring 30-plus goals in an 82-game stretch is impressive. It also puts him in some pretty unique company when revisiting this franchise’s history.
The list of centres that have surpassed the 30-goal is limited to two players: Jason Spezza and Alexei Yashin. Yashin accomplished the feat as a 20-year old during his 1993-94 rookie campaign, but it took Spezza four seasons to surpass the mark in his age-23 season.
The first 82-games of his career be damned, Norris stands a great chance of eclipsing 30 goals this season. And, if he can, he will become the second-youngest player in franchise history to do it. Marian Hossa and Martin Havlat also scored 30 as 22-year olds, but they are a few more months older than Norris.
The sophomore has built himself a nice cushion with 14 goals in Ottawa’s first 28 games and to surpass the mark, he’s only going to need to match last season’s 24.9 goal pace to get there.
Eventually, there may be some regression in Norris’ shooting percentage. Of the 413 skaters who have logged over 300 five-on-five minutes, only 12 players have higher individual shooting percentages than Norris’ 19.05.
With that said, the good news is that Norris has historically been a strong finisher. In all situations last season, Norris scored on 17.7 percent of his shots on goal and at five-on-five, he scored on 16.39 percent of them.
Norris has showcased his efficiency as a shooter, but just how good has he been?
Using the last two seasons of data, JFreshHockey’s metrics place Norris in the 96th percentile for finishing.
That puts him in some elite company and the rating warrants more attention. Perhaps some of the shine wears off because the team’s five-on-five shot metrics have taken a dive this season.
When Norris has been on the ice at five-on-five, the Senators have been at a disadvantage by almost every shot and goal metric available. The one exception has been the percentage of total goals that the Senators have scored and that has largely been influenced with the team scoring on 13.09 percent of their shots.
I don’t believe the poor possession numbers should be a major cause of concern. For me, they are a reflection of the team’s play as a whole.
This city has spent a considerable amount of time this season discussing the blue line and its lack of quality of depth. Many of the Ottawa’s structural issues on the defensive side of the puck have been compounded from the blue line’s true talent level and ability to transition the play up the ice.
And like most of his teammates, Norris’ numbers tend to go into the tank when Thomas Chabot is not on the ice with him. Equally as important, Norris’ isolated individual defensive impact does not appear to be hampered.
Like last season, Norris is still a positive defensive contributor who helps mitigate the rate of expected goals against. It’s not quite as strong as last season, but it is important to note that his offensive impact has improved per HockeyViz.com.
Another encouraging sign is that Norris’ individual shot rates are up. Using NaturalStatTrick.com’s data, it is easy to see that Norris’ individual metrics at five-on-five have trended up. Through the first 28 games, he has generated more shots (iCF), shots on goal (shots/60), high-danger scoring chances (iHDCF/60) and expected goals (ixG/60).
Where there is a huge spike in Norris’ shot rates however comes on the power play
Not surprisingly, it looks like the Senators’ power play is having a lot of success providing quality looks for Norris.
After scoring six power play goals last season, Norris already has five in half the games played.
Throw it all together and it appears as though Norris has taken on a much larger offensive role this season and the team recognizes his importance. His role has expanded and his confidence will grow commensurately as he continues to gain more experience and enjoy success.
And when you look at Ottawa’s underlying metrics, it is not difficult to understand how the team is creating its success. Despite the underwhelming goaltending and its poor shot and goal suppression metrics, Ottawa’s power play and ability to finish have kept the team competitive.
Norris has played a huge role in this team’s success thus far. It has been 10 years since a Senators player has eclipsed that 30-goal mark, but barring some good health or a shortened schedule, Norris has put himself in a good position to be the next.
Other News and Notes:
MacLeans’ Shannon Proudfoot creatively used court documents filed within the U.S. Federal system to craft a script based on Eugene Melnyk’s disastrous and well-publicized Christmas yacht cruise from last year. It’s a highly recommended and entertaining read. The only things missing were some easy barbs poking fun at: 1) the owner’s inability to get along with his captains; and 2) fears that his cruise would share his hockey club’s plight and wind up at the bottom of the Atlantic.
Senators super prospect Jake Sanderson was named the captain of the United States’ 2022 WJC team this week.
There was a ton of Garrioch/Melnyk content in the newspapers this week. Considering the pause in the NHL schedule and news that NHLers would not be participating in the 2022 Winter Olympics, the opportunity to get Melnyk’s opinions on vaccinations or dredge up memories of Dominik Hasek’s injury in Turin were too good to pass up. Since the goaltender’s adductor injury, the Senators owner has railed against the idea of NHLers participating in the Olympics at every turn. Perhaps the owner thinks he’s being humourous to suggest he has little interest in sending players when few are realistic candidates to represent Canada, but he’s made the same comment in the past and it’s dumb. Whether he’s joking or not, I’m sure the non-Canadians appreciate it.
Sticking with the Olympics, it’s understandable why the NHL and its players backed out. With that said, it’s disappointing that we’re not going to have another chance to see the world’s best compete against each other on a large stage. It’s been such a long time since Ottawa’s players have played meaningful hockey. It feels like a lost opportunity to enjoy watching players like Tkachuk and Chabot play and be surrounded by elite talent.