1. Possession dominance<\/p>\n
Edmonton Oilers defenseman Evan Bouchard<\/a> has eight points (four goals, four assists) in his first two games of the season, becoming the first player at his position with that many points through his team\u2019s first two games of a season in NHL history. Bouchard, who led NHL defensemen in points last season (95), boasts elite advanced stats in multiple categories, and his continued possession prowess is helping him build an early case for the Norris Trophy<\/a>.<\/p>\n Bouchard, who had five points and a hat trick in the season opener against the Vancouver Canucks on Sept. 29, followed up that performance with three points (one goal, two assists) in the rematch against Vancouver on Oct. 1. Prior to Bouchard\u2019s outburst, the last defenseman with four goals through his team\u2019s first two games was Larry Sacharuk for the St. Louis Blues in 1974-75. The Oilers, with Bouchard and Connor McDavid<\/a> each having five-point games so far, have also become second team in NHL history to have at least one player with five or more points in each of the team\u2019s first two games of a season (other: Phil Esposito, Ken Hodge for Boston Bruins in 1973-74).<\/p>\n Bouchard ranks in the 97th percentile in offensive zone time percentage early on this season (51.7); last season, he was tied for third among defensemen in that category (47.6; behind Shayne<\/a> Gostisbehere<\/a>\u2019s 49.6, Adam Fox<\/a>\u2019s 48.0) and was also tied for third at his position in power-play offensive zone time percentage (63.5). So far this season, Bouchard also leads NHL defensemen in 5-on-5 shot attempts differential (plus-29) and is tied with forward teammate Leon Draisaitl<\/a> for the best mark in that category among all skaters. It\u2019s also significant that Bouchard is tied with Draisaitl for the most shot attempts (18) in the entire NHL so far.<\/p>\n But, with the Oilers allowing 13 goals over their first two games this season,\u00a0Bouchard continues to shoulder a heavy workload\u00a0(25:01 per game this season; 11th in NHL).\u00a0Despite strong core offensive stats and advanced possession metrics,\u00a0Bouchard had the third-most giveaways among defensemen last season (123); only Werenski (125) and\u00a0MacKenzie Weegar (124) had more. Bouchard has had three giveaways over his first\u00a0two games this season, and he and his team may need\u00a0to improve defensively under new coach Mike Babcock for him to ultimately win the Norris Trophy.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"1. Possession dominance Edmonton Oilers defenseman Evan Bouchard has eight points (four goals, four assists) in his first…\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":677423,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[5125],"tags":[198,146,5300,5,4,24],"class_list":["post-677422","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","category-edmonton-oilers","tag-edmonton","tag-edmonton-oilers","tag-edmontonoilers","tag-hockey","tag-nhl","tag-oilers"],"share_on_mastodon":{"url":"https:\/\/channels.im\/@nhl\/117375326186834160","error":""},"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.rawchili.com\/nhl\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/677422","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.rawchili.com\/nhl\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.rawchili.com\/nhl\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.rawchili.com\/nhl\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.rawchili.com\/nhl\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=677422"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.rawchili.com\/nhl\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/677422\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.rawchili.com\/nhl\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/677423"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.rawchili.com\/nhl\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=677422"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.rawchili.com\/nhl\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=677422"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.rawchili.com\/nhl\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=677422"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}