NEWSLETTER
Back in early February as the Blackhawks wrapped their pre-All-Star Game schedule, I wrote about Jason Dickinson‘s case for Selke Trophy votes. We’re now ten games away from the end of Chicago’s regular season, and with Dickinson reaching 20 goals last night I thought it would be a good time to revisit that conversation.
Dickinson continues to be a driving force for the Blackhawks defensively, but reaching the 20-goal mark for the season is a significant benchmark for him personally. How do his stats stack up against some of the other great defensive forwards around the NHL? I did some homework for you to review and, hopefully, voters who have a say in the process.
“He’s playing against [Jonathan] Huberdeau again tonight a lot, and he had three goals against Toronto one night with [Auston] Matthews, one of the best goal scorers in the league, trying to shut him down,” Blackhawks head coach Luke Richardson said after Tuesday night’s win. “When you do that all year long and you’re scoring — I think he may have had one against Edmonton, which more than likely he’s on the ice with [Leon] Draisaitl or [Connor] McDavid — that’s a big accomplishment, playing the right way and being a leader for our team in all aspects.”
For all of the stats I list below, the numbers considered are thru games played as of Tuesday, March 26.
Dependable Dickinson
Dickinson is +5 for the season — on a team that’s -76. And he’s the only player on the Blackhawks’ roster who has appeared in all 72 game thus far. As I said when I first wrote about this topic in February, “I consistently downplay the significance of plus-minus as a stat we should put much weight on. But when you have an outlier like Dickinson’s number in that context? We can’t dismiss it.”
I went thru all of the NHL teams’ faceoff leaders. Dickinson had taken 612 faceoffs more than Connor Bedard, who ranks second on the Blackhawks. Only two players in the NHL have a larger gap between their faceoff total and the second player on their roster: Sidney Crosby (847) and Joel Eriksson Ek (657). Dickinson is doing that on a bad team, and he’s still winning 50.6 percent of his draws.
There are 29 centers in the NHL who have scored 20 goals and are winning at least 50 percent of their faceoffs. Dickinson is on that list. Among those centers, Dickinson’s 16:30 average time on ice ranks last.
Only 13 centers who have won at least 50 percent of their faceoffs have more than Dickinson’s 18 even-strength goals. Among centers who have won at least 50 percent of their faceoffs, only 14 have more than Dickinson’s four game-winning goals.
Some more league-wide numbers:
Here’s the list of forwards who have appeared in at least 60 games, average at least 2:00 per game of short-handed ice time and have a better even strength on-ice goals for percentage than Dickinson:
As you can see, of the seven skaters ahead of Dickinson on that list, four have scored more than his 20 goals: Sam Reinhart, Mitch Marner, Seth Jarvis and Eriksson Ek. And only two of those seven players — Bjugstad (Arizona is -23) and Eriksson Ek (Minnesota is -10) — are doing it on a team with a negative goal differential. Neither of those teams is close to the Blackhawks’ -76 as a team.
Killing (Penalties) in the Name of
The Blackhawks’ penalty kill has actually been a relatively strong part of the team’s game all year in spite of their record; Chicago ranks 22nd in the NHL, killing 77.1 percent of opposing teams’ power plays. Dickinson has been a huge part of that effort.
Each year since 1978, the Frank J. Selke Trophy has been presented “to the forward who best excels in the defensive aspects of the game.” Since they started handing out the award, only three Blackhawks have won the award: Troy Murray (1986), Dirk Graham (1991) and Jonathan Toews (2013).
Will Dickinson become the fourth? It’s unlikely; the overwhelming majority of the conversation about the Blackhawks around the league has centered around Bedard. But Dickinson is absolutely worthy of strong consideration for his great, hard work this entire season.
