2013 Report Cards: David "The Golden Stick" Krejci

The Basics

Since the 2009-2010 season ended, David Krejci has definitely cemented himself as the 1B center on the Bruins, and this year was no exception. Playing with linemates Nathan Horton and Milan Lucic for the majority of the season, Krejci was on pace for a third straight season with points totals in the mid-60s.

Regular Season

With exactly one more point than Patrice Bergeron, Krejci had the second-highest points total on the team in the regular season - right behind Brad Marchand and his magical 19.8% shooting percentage. Krejci himself scored at a rate of 10.8%, and shot at about the same rate as he had the past four seasons. He had 2.17 P/60, good for fifth on the team.

Interestingly enough, Krejci's Corsi stats are fairly low when compared to the rest of the team - lower than you might expect considering how offensively productive his line usually is. Indeed, Lucic and Horton's 5v5 CorsiOn numbers are both up around 17 - meaning, I think, that for just as good as they were with Krejci, they continued to be good without him, whereas Krejci didn't fare the same. When looking at all three players' WOWY numbers compared to each other, that holds up - when playing with Lucic vs. playing without him, Krejci's GF/20% drops from 59.6% to a meager 33.3%, and his Corsi% goes from 57.8 to 48.1. (In both cases, anything below 50% means that the other team was more productive than the Bruins during that time, so that is incredibly not great.) His most common linemates outside of Lucic and Horton were Rich Peverley, Tyler Seguin, and Daniel Paille, so...that probably explains that.

On the flip side, Nathan Horton seemed to be about as productive during his time away from Krejci (53.2 GF% with vs. 57% w/o, 57.1 C% with vs. 56.2% w/o) while Lucic's productivity dropped marginally but not significantly (a drop from 59.6 in GF% to 57.1%, and a drop from 57.8 to 55.2 in C%).

Krejci scored 24 of his 27 points (10 goals, 13 assists) with Lucic on the ice. Basically when paired together, those two are excellent.

On the power play, Krejci wasn't exactly a goal-getter - he scored zero power play goals - but had seven assists which is pretty acceptable.

Playoffs

Aside: During the playoffs, Krejci won the Golden Stick award, which is the award for being the best Czech hockey player of the year. Boom.

Krejci had the most productive playoffs, points-wise, of his entire career. He had almost as many goals through 22 playoff games as he had through the entire regular season with the Bruins, which is pretty great. His shooting percentage went up, his PDO went up, his ATOI went up, he had the highest P/60 on the entire team, his CorsiOn plummeted....wait a second.

Yes, Krejci had a negative CorsiOn during the 2013 playoffs. So did Milan Lucic. Someone with more stats experience than me can probably explain this better, but it just seems to me that the Bruins may have been less than stellar at defense/possession while Lucic and Krejci were on the ice during the playoffs - and that despite that, they made the most of their ozone time (hence the 16.7 shooting percentage and much higher PDO.)

Conclusion: A

Krejci did a solid job anchoring one of the top two lines on the Bruins. In that position, he did everything asked of him - put up points, wasn't usually a defensive/puck possession liability, and when he was, he at least scored more than his opponents - especially in the playoffs (highest P/60 on the team with 3.32). While that playoffs Corsi number is a little suspect, his points total most definitely isn't.