It Takes Two

Sonny and Cher. Hulk Hogan and Mr. T. Simon Cowell and Paula Abdul. History is abundant with ground-breaking partners that together wrought far greater achievements than either could have dreamed of on their own. In the NHL, such pairings can carry a team through long stretches by carrying the offensive burden on their combined shoulders. During the 1990's, we saw unstoppable combos such as Mario Lemieux/Jaromir Jagr from the Penguins, Teemu Selanne/Paul Kariya with the erstwhile "Mighty" Ducks, and of course Adam Oates/Brett Hull from the St. Louis Blues. But who are today's most dynamic duos?

My guideline here is to look for players providing the first assist on each others' goals. For example, our top pair, Martin St. Louis and Vincent Lecavalier of the Tampa Bay Lightning, have eighteen such scores. St. Louis has talled 12 goals where Lecavalier has recorded the first assist, while St. Louis has repaid the favor to Lecavalier six times.

Top First-Assist Combos As Of Jan. 17

Combo	Goals	Scoring Split
St.Louis/Lecavalier, TAM	18	12/6
Straka/Nylander, NYR	17	12/5
Zubrus/Ovechkin, WSH	17	10/7
Hossa/Koslov, ATL	17	9/8
Langkow/Iginla, CGY	16	10/6
Pominville/Briere, BUF	14	11/3
Heatley/Spezza, OTT	14	9/5
D. Sedin/H. Sedin, VAN	14	9/5
Blake/Yashin, NYI	14	9/5
Selanne/McDonald, ANA	13	10/3
Kunitz/Selanne, ANA	13	9/4
Jokinen/Horton, FLA	13	8/5
Gionta/Gomez, NJD	13	7/6

The remarkable thing that jumps out right away is that "Selanne + Any Warm Body" makes a pretty good pairing. Those are the basic results, but I thought I'd add another twist to this scenario. Let's see to what extent these first-assist relationships account for the various pairs' overall output. Taking the Lightning again as an example, Lecavalier and St. Louis have combined for 58 goals, of which 18 have involved one providing the first assist for the other:

Top First-Assist Combos, Sorted By Fraction of Total Scoring

Combo	1st Assists	Total Goals	Fraction
D. Sedin/H. Sedin, VAN	14	22	.636
Gionta/Gomez, NJD	13	28	.464
Straka/Nylander, NYR	17	39	.436
Pominville/Briere, BUF	14	36	.389
Blake/Yashin, NYI	14	36	.389
Zubrus/Ovechkin, WSH	17	44	.386
Langkow/Iginla, CGY	16	42	.381
Hossa/Koslov, ATL	17	46	.370
Jokinen/Horton, FLA	13	37	.351
Selanne/McDonald, ANA	13	41	.317
St.Louis/Lecavalier, TAM	18	58	.310
Heatley/Spezza, OTT	14	47	.298
Kunitz/Selanne, ANA	13	47	.277

This is where I think we see the difference between paired players who merely have lots of success on the ice and happen to be in the same place at the same time, and those who truly rely on each other for goal scoring. In particular, the Sedin twins' results are eye-popping. They only have 22 combined goals, but almost two-thirds involve one twin directly providing the play for the other to score! Perhaps one lesson out of this is that if opposing teams can lock up one of the players who rank highly on this list, it might fare badly for their partner as well, as they may be particularly reliant on each other to make the overall offense flow.