How Many Goals will Sidney Crosby score in 2010-11?

You’re forgetting that he changed his stick and curve before last year, hence his MONSTER performance. /Pierre McGuire

While I know that Crosby shot an increased S% this year, my impression is that he took more shots from closer to the net. If it’s not too much trouble, how does your expected-scoring-by-shot-location break down for him this last year?

It will be interesting to see what impact the new requirements for goaltender equipment have on goal totals for big scorers. If it means a 1-2% increase in shot percentage this season, I think Crosby might be in the 50 goal neighborhood again. Crosby and Stamkos had the highest shooting percentages in the league by a pretty wide margin (among shooters who took 200+ shots). It would seem unlikely that they would maintain that kind of shooting efficiency. However, a moderate decrease in shot efficiency could be offset by lower save percentages of opposing goaltenders.

If presume Crosby is a natural 15% shooter (which is very high, but then, he’s also very talented) and he takes the same number of shots this year as he did last year, he would tally about 45 goals against goaltenders comparable to what he faced in 09-10. If the new goal pads result in 1% more shots going in, he would add 3 more goals, putting him at 48.

So if the changes to new form-fitting goaltender equipment is as effective as the GMs intend it to be, I don’t think its unreasonable to suspect Crosby could be in the neighborhood of 50 goals.

I could buy, if he changed his approach/stick/voodoo doll/pregame pixie dust last year, that he might score above his career norm but definitely not 50 goals again.

So where are folks setting the over/under for the number of goals that wins the Richard next year?

Using the 3/2/1 weighting from the last couple of content posts, you arrive at 55, but that 65 goal year at the 1 weight is a pretty significant outlier. 53 seems more reasonable to me, simply because of the volume of shots required to hit 55+ goals at any kind of reasonable shooting percentage.

That 5on5 shot site is useful, I’d forgotten you post that stuff.

The EV shot rate did go up quite a bit, from just under 8 shots per 60 to just under 10 shots per 60. Only as accurate as the data you used of course, but Crosby took a ton more wrist shots from far out. That’s obviously a conscious decision, I don’t know how many goals he’s going to give his team (likely bet is zero) but certainly he’ll pick up a few extra in his goals column.

Not a consistent 12 surely, that’s just the outer marker and a bit off the rails if you ask me. He won’t repeat that, not without extenuating circumstances or an unforeseen developmental jump (which, let’s be honest, it happens but Crosby’s already so good at the things that normally only come with experience, how much more does he really have to go?).