Wings Nation 2016-17 Player Review: Tomas Tatar
By David Law
6 years agoOur Player Reviews have reached Tomas Tatar! The Wings as a whole had a very down year as we’ve seen. It’s important, therefore, to try and keep players stats in the context of the team. Tatar struggled for the first part of the year but came on very strong near the end. He also has been struggling with a shoulder injury that require surgery to repair after the season. Tatar was one of the most talked about trade-bait options for the Wings this year, and that is likely to continue for as long as the re-build lasts (assuming he comes to terms with the Wings this summer.) Let’s dig in!
Hero Chart:
Tatar has a very solid Hero chart. His ice time shows that he is consistently deployed as a second line forward, but most of his other metrics show him performing at first line levels. In Shots Generated and Primary Assists he is a solid second line player, but in Goals, Shots Conceded, Primary Points and Shot Impact he is well outperforming his ice time. Part of this may be due to usage. He has seen relatively protected minutes and has been deployed in favourable matchups. As we saw with Vanek, Blashill is very good at maximizing his players usefulness by playing them in situations that they are likely to perform well in.
Crunching Numbers:
Boxcars:
(Stats courtesy of nhl.com)
Tatar had his second highest career point total this year. He was 10 points off his 2014-15 pace. He did net a solid 25 goals, which for this team was very impressive. Tatar has shown the ability to be a top-line scorer consistently. Personally, I think he has a bit more to give and would like to see him step it up another notch. Similar to Nyquist, I still don’t think Tatar has reached his potential. It will be interesting to see if he is traded before he’s able to achieve this in Detroit.
Corsi:
(Stats courtesy of puckalytics.com)
At 50.56 Tatar had the fourth best CF% on the team. Russo had a better CF% than Tatar, but played only 19 games. Tatar’s strength is his goal scoring. He managed to put 25 goals in the net this year despite playing on a team that struggled with points. The team was ranked 24th in CF% so Tatar’s league ranking leaves a lot to be desired. It would be interesting to see what Tatar could accomplish playing on a team that is able to score at a high level.
Goal Based:
(Stats courtesy of puckalytics.com)
Tatar was fourth on the team again in GF60. Again, this bodes well that he is performing near the top of the team and among elite company. As with Nyquist though, it is important to remember how bad this team was. Tatar had the most goals on the team this year, and his scoring touch has the potential to keep climbing. If he can either improve his assist column or start putting the puck in the net even more he should remain among the top of the Wings in this metric and climb the NHL ranks where he finished 101.
2017-18 Prediction:
I assume that Tatar will re-sign this summer since he is a restricted free agent. The team and he seem confident that his shoulder surgery will go well and he will be ready to play come next season. All of this bodes well for Tatar. If he can score the way he did at the end of this year on a bad shoulder, he should be able to at least continue that pace when healthy. He seems more confident every season and next year should be no exception. All signs point to Tatar putting up career numbers next year. It remains to be seen if all of those numbers will be with Detroit.
Conclusion
Tatar had a relatively good year. While he still didn’t take that next step he put up solid numbers, played every game even though injured and showed that he could rediscover his scoring touch after a tepid start to the year. He is a proven scorer and hasn’t yet reached his peak as a player. He is, however, coming up to it. If Detroit is in rebuild mode and another team could use a scoring forward Tatar could still make valuable trade-bait.
Grade: B
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