Nashville Predators 30-Game Report Card: The Wingers

It's time to wrap up our series of 30-Game Report Cards with the wingers, the guys whose job it is to battle along the boards and light up the scoreboard for the Nashville Predators. Which one are delivering the results, and which need to step up their game?

Just follow after the jump to find out...

Save money on Preds tickets by taking the OTF Discount!

First up, the advanced stats from Behind the Net, including a little extra prestidigitation on my part (legend at bottom). The grades, as with the others in this series, are relative to reasonable expectations for that player heading into this season.

Name	GP	TOI	CORSI	CORSI REL	Net ZS	Adj Corsi	SPCT	SVPCT	PDO	G/60	A/60	Pts/60	CORSI Rel QoC	CORSI Rel QoT
Martin Erat	22	14.3	-9.14	-5.20	-28	-3.28	10.0	927	1027	0.76	1.33	2.09	+1.37	+1.75
Matt Halischuk	30	10.6	-19.63	-13.30	-16	-16.31	8.3	944	1027	0.94	0.57	1.51	+0.52	-2.74
Patric Hornqvist	29	12.7	+5.23	+18.60	+14	+2.71	6.8	921	989	1.14	0.66	1.80	+0.77	+3.93
Sergei Kostitsyn	24	13.2	-3.42	+7.60	+10	-5.51	7.7	926	1003	0.57	1.33	1.90	+0.64	+1.07
Brian McGrattan	20	5.6	-9.69	+2.30	-4	-7.32	6.5	915	979	0.00	1.08	1.08	-1.38	-5.32
Jordin Tootoo	28	13.0	-15.64	-8.20	-34	-9.48	7.8	946	1025	0.49	0.99	1.48	+0.31	-4.04
Colin Wilson	30	13.6	+3.97	+18.60	+4	+3.32	9.8	881	979	0.44	1.02	1.46	+1.07	+3.96

---

---

---

---

Marty faces the toughest opponents night-in, night-out, and has managed to put up decent results so far, even though his special teams work has been fairly mediocre, both on the power play and penalty kill. Our Christmas wish is to have him enjoy a good stretch of health, as it always seems like an injury or two comes along to derail his season each year.

Grade: B

---

---

---

---

The fans love "Hustlechuk" for the occasional goal which is created by his straight-ahead, hard-charging style of play, but I'm not a fan of how too much of his time is spent in the defensive zone chasing opposing forwards. I will give him credit for doing a good job killing penalties so far this season, but in 5-on-5, there's a real mess here. He boasts the 5th-worst Corsi among all forwards with 20 GP and 10 minutes/game of 5-on-5 in the entire league, and unlike Jerred Smithson, that can't be explained away by a heavy dose of tough defensive Zone Starts.

He's an excellent example of how the stats can point out what's going on between the highlights. Yes, those great plays you see once every week or two are endearing, but it's what happens in between that causes concern. I'd be fine with a 4th line of, say, Smithson-Spaling-Halischuk, but playing him above that level right now leaves the team at a disadvantage.

Grade: C

---

---

---

---

Just call him the Swedish Streak. Outside of a torrid fortnight in late October/early November, Hornqvist has been largely invisible this season (just look at that lack of production on the power play). At least he's still creating shots, so there's hope that the goal-scoring will come around, but things need to pick up soon.

Grade: C-

---

---

---

---

He earned himself a short stint in Barry Trotz's doghouse during a lackluster early portion of the season, and struggles to assert himself on a consistent basis offensively. He still suffers from the "pass first, second, and third" mentality that has frustrated fans at times, and is actually on pace to put fewer shots on goal than last season.

Grade: C-

---

---

---

---

*deep breath*

These grades are set relative to a player's expectation, so you can't complain about McGrattan's performance here. He pounds the snot out of opponents and gets the crowd involved, too. His November 17 bout with Toronto's Jay Rosehill is the top-rated fight of the year at HockeyFights.com, and his battle with New Jersey's Cam Janssen ranks 4th.

Grade: A-

---

---

---

---

For the last three weeks or so, Tootoo has been displaying the combination of athleticism, toughness and skill that fans have been awaiting for years. Can he keep it up? There's a contract on the line for this longtime Pred, and it'll be a big one if he can.

The first 19 games were another story, however, as he notched just 3 assists. His overall play is still characterized by forehead-slap-inducing turnovers at times and instances where he gets out of control. In many ways, he reminds me of a young power pitcher in baseball who hasn't learned to take a slight edge off the fastball to gain a bit more accuracy.

He is drawing penalties at a pretty good clip, which is helping to set up what has been a surprisingly strong Nashville power play.

Grade: B

---

---

---

---

Another young forward who is due for a contract this summer, Colin Wilson has definitively taken a step forward this season. His possession numbers are among the very best on the team, and his Plus/Minus of -1 is deceptively low, given the .881 Save Percentage Nashville goalies are putting up while behind him in 5-on-5 play (lowest among the regular players, and you'd be hard-pressed to argue that's Willy's fault).

And the nifty thing is that when you balance how many penalties a guy draws against how many he takes (what I used to tally as Penalty Plus/Minus), Wilson is just a smidge behind Jordin Tootoo in terms of how many power plays he's creating for the Preds. In the offensive zone he's showing greater vision to distribute the puck after creating space for himself, and he's contributing in a larger role on the power play, too.

Grade: A-

Legend
CORSI	The balance of Total Shots For & Against per 60 minutes of 5-on-5 while this player is on the ice.
CORSI REL	The difference between the team's Corsi when this player is on the ice, and when he's on the bench.
Net ZS	How often a player's shift starts in the Offensive Zone minus the Defensive.
Adj Corsi	Corsi adjusted for Zone Starts.
SPCT	Team Shooting Percentage while this player is on the ice in 5-on-5.
SVPCT	Team Save Percentage while this player is on the ice in 5-on-5.
PDO	SPCT + SVPCT, this trends strongly towards 1000. Extreme values are typically signs of "puck luck".
G/60	Goals scored by this player per 60 minutes of 5-on-5.
A/60	Assists by this player per 60 minutes of 5-on-5.
Pts/60	Points by this player per 60 minutes of 5-on-5.
CORSI Rel QoC	Quality of Competition calculated using Relative Corsi.
CORSI Rel QoT	Quality of Teammates calculated using Relative Corsi.