Bjugle Charge and The Minnesota Connection

If you haven’t noticed lately, Nick Bjugstad is starting to look a bit like his old self.

He has seen something of a downturn this season. His P1/60 of 0.96 is the lowest in a full season by Bjugstad, and his iCF/60 of 13.01 is also the lowest in a full season. It also appears that Vincent Trocheck has passed Bjugstad as the #2 Center behind Aleksander Barkov. The result is Bjugstad centering a line with Logan Shaw and a rotating cast of players on the opposite wing. However, its not getting the most out of the big center.

That is until recently. Over the last 8 or 9 games, Bjugstad has seen a spike in the amount of shots he has been taking. Over his first 43 games, Bjugstad had taken 4 or more shots on goal just 10 times. Over the last eight games, Bjugstad has hit that mark five times. Its so noticable that Bjugstad has gone from a season iCF/60 of 11.46 to the current 13.01 over the same span.

Check out the below graph. I fused a rolling average graph from Corsica.hockey and a viz from Micah Blake McCurdy’s fantastic site that illustrates who was playing with Bjugstad. Here, we can see how his linemates could be influencing his results. The purple bars at the end are Kyle Rau.

Bjugstad Shooting

It is of no surprise to me that Bjugstad’s recent surge has coincided with the arrival of Kyle Rau. Though he has not scored a point as of yet, Rau’s been a noticable presence every time he steps on the ice. He’s buzzing around the net, he’s reading the play well, finding soft spots in coverage, and shooting the lights out. He just has not found the back of the net. Yet. I really feel like once he does get a point, it could open the flood gates on him. Check out the WOWY for Bjugstad and Rau, small sample as it may be:

 

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The goals will come once that shooting percentage normalizes. They won’t stay at 4.55% forever.

I would love to see Rau remain on Bjugstad’s wing. It is hard not love these two as a unit given how much these guys shoot when they are together. It will be interesting to see what happens once Teddy Purcell is ready to go after dealing with his groin issue. It will be mighty hard to displace Rau at this point, especially if he is able to bust the donut on his scoresheet.

About AJ Bruhn

AJ is the Managing Editor of The Sunshine Skate, and can be reached on Twitter below.

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