Philadelphia Flyers right wing Travis Konecny scored quite a few goals this season that can be categorized as clutch. His promotion to the top line on December 23rd has given him more opportunities to produce offensively. When compared to his draft year peers, Konecny scored more game-changing goals than any of them this past season. Specifically, goals scored at even-strength. For this exercise, Konecny was compared to his peers who played at least 800 minutes at even strength during the 2017-2018 season.
Travis Konecny: Clutch Goal Scorer
Crucial Goals
If it sounds self-explanatory, its because it is. Crucial goals are goals that tie the game or change the lead. As you can see, Konecny scored more of these type of goals than Brock Boeser. Boeser is, understandably so, regarded as an elite goal-scorer. Knowing this, it puts Konecy’s performance in a new light. When the team needed a momentum-changing play, Travis Konecny stepped up to the plate and delivered.
Critical Goals
Designated as crucial goals scored in the 3rd period or Overtime. Once more, Konecny shines brighter than his draft year peers. Scoring goals at those junctures in the game can be serious momentum changers. There were six times this season at even strength when Konecny delivered these significant goals.
Goal Involvement (G%)
Goal Involvement refers to a player’s goals per game divided by his team’s goals per game. Travis Konecny directly contributed 12.13% of the Flyers goals at even-strength. Only Brock Boeser and Sebastian Aho performed better in regards to being directly involved in his team’s goal scoring. It’s unsurprising to see not only his goal totals increase but also his overall point totals increase after his promotion to the top line. Common sense suggests that good players perform well when paired with other good players. Konecny’s increased production backs up that assertion.
Zone Entries: Carry-Ins/60
One of the most important parts of today’s game is the ability to gain the offensive zone with possession. This is a part of Konecny’s game where he excels. The analytics community has found a relationship between entering the offensive zone with possession and goal-scoring.
Surprise, surprise! Travis Konecny leads his peers in Carry-Ins/60 (number of carry-ins per 60 minutes of ice time) according to Corey Sznajder’s All-Three-Zone manual tracking data. Corey’s data is easily accessible through this viz by C.J. Turturo.
The Future
There is nearly a half season’s worth of games that suggest Travis Konecny is clutch and already a top-line right wing. Over his final 46 games, Konecny scored fifth in even-strength goals (19) and tied for ninth in even-strength points (36) among all forwards. As long as coach Dave Hakstol uses him on a scoring line, the possibility of becoming a regular 50-70 point contributor in the coming years isn’t out of the question.
Data used in this article per NaturalStatTrick, Rob Vollman’s Super-Spreadsheet, and Corey Sznajder’s All-Three-Zone Data.
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