I’m pretty sick of trying to sound all formal and stuff, and making my articles look polished and all that.  That being said, I really don’t want to spend a lot of time on an article that has some point but not a lot of depth, so let’s get straight to it.

A week or two ago the Leafs traded for Kris Versteeg.  He’s a top-six foward, a right-winger to be exact.  He was nominated for the Calder Trophy in 2008-2009 after a pretty impressive rookie campaign but last year his points dipped off because of the depth chart on a stacked Stanley Cup-winning team.  First it was up, then it was down for Kris Versteeg and his so far short NHL career…so what should we expect from him next year?

Well, read on to find out.

Instead of using the stats from this past regular season which were deformed by injuries around the tream, a change of centre-men and ice-time and all that crap, we’re gonna use our much more concrete evidence: the stats from the playoffs.  In 22 games this past post-season, Versteeg tallied 14 points in 22 games, good for a 0.64 PPG ratio.  In this time, Versteeg played essentially the entire run alongside center Dave Bolland, while Versteeg averaged 17:12 of ice-time per game.  There, that’s all we need to calculate Versteeg’s potential for next season.  Now let’s get to it.

First of all, to the dismay of many, we should probably admit that for the upcoming 2010-2011 season, the first-line center of the Toronto Maple Leafs will be Tyler Bozak.  Highly touted prospect Nazem Kadri will probably be getting more seasoning in the AHL, and as such Mikhail Grabovski should be our second-line center by default.  We’re not gonna use Grabo’s numbers from the past season to say what we should expect from him, we’re gonna use his numbers from 2008-2009 when he was healthy.  48 points is what he got, similar to the 47 Dave Bolland put up with the Blackhawks that year.  Okay, so let’s just say for the time being that having Mikhail Grabovski center Kris Versteeg is essentially he same as having Dave Bolland center Kris Versteeg.

Next, we take the ice-time.  Versteeg put up 14 points in 22 games while averaging 17:12 per game, and I think a good estimation of what Versteeg will get playing with the Leafs next year is 18:30 per game.  Alright, so 17×60+12=1032 seconds, and 18×60+30=1110 seconds.  So we divide 1110 by 1032, and we get 1.07558.  That number is the key to discovering Versteeg’s projected numbers for next season.

What we do is we take that number and multiply it by his point totals.  He had 6 goals and 8 assists in the playoffs, so we multiply 6 and 8 by the number above individually.  What we get is 6.45348 along with 8.60464.  Next up we is we divide those numbers by 22, and finally mutliply them by 82 for our final answer.

6.45348 divided by 22=0.29335, and mutliplied by 82 that’s 24.0547.  That’s his projected goal total.  We now do the same with his assists.  Alright, 8.60464 divided by 22=0.39112, and multiplied by 82 that’s 32.07184. That my friends, would be his assists.

So in conclusion, should Kris Versteeg get some good top-six minutes and play most of the season beside Mikhail Grabovski, it looks like the most he’s gonna put up next year is 24 goals and 32 assists, good for 56 points total.  Granted, Versteeg and Grabovski are both incurable puck hogs, so they might have horrible chemistry together and as such decrease eachother’s would-have-been numbers.  Then again, since they are both incurable puck hogs maybe they have tremendous chemistry and inflate eachother’s stats wildly.  Let’s go with 56 points flat, give or take about 5 points total, so 51-61 points is what you’re looking at for Kris Versteeg next season.

Keep in mind what Versteeg does next year doesn’t have to be what he does every year.  He’s young and always improving, and most importantly if Mikhail Grabovski is your second line center you probably aren’t a very good team, so if we ever do get a first-line center to play with Phil Kessel then perhaps Tyler Bozak gets shifted down to the second line, thus elevating Versteeg to his full potential.  Whoever the center is for Versteeg when the Leafs are actually competitive, you should expect Versteeg’s numbers to be closer to around 65 points a year.  To me, that’s a bright future.

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