Pittsburgh Penguins: An In-Depth Look at Nick Bonino
By Mike Necciai
If you follow me on Twitter at @Michael29Angelo (if you don’t, you should!), or read my work here regarding the Pittsburgh Penguins, you’ll know that I’ve been been petitioning all summer for the Pens to trade Brandon Sutter and sign Eric Fehr. To my surprise and delight they did, but ended up with a much better deal than I had imagined they could.
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Sutter is a name that brings up an immense amount of debate among Pens’ fans. But, no matter how you felt about his individual performance, when you consider that Jim Rutherford acquired 27-year old Nick Bonino in this deal, plus added Adam Clendening and upgraded a draft pick from round three to two, it’s a clear win for the Pittsburgh Penguins.
Looking at Bonino, Pittsburgh seems to be a place that he can take the next step in his level of play. There are multiple reasons he’s an immediate upgrade over what Sutter offered the Pens. We’ll take a look at how he looks in the fancy stats department first.
From an offensive standpoint, Bonino drives results at a much higher pace than what the Pens have had in the bottom-six since Jordan Staal. Last season, he led the Vancouver Canucks in corsi-for per sixty minutes of play (total shot attempts for per sixty minutes) with a 58.50. Granted, he isn’t facing the opposition’s best defensive players, as the Sedin’s draw that interest in Vancouver. But, that won’t change in his role with the Pittsburgh Penguins.
Below is Bonino’s HERO chart courtesy of ownthepuck.blogspot.ca.
At a high level, you’ll see that he produces shot attempts and point production at top-line rates (Individual Production section). But, it’s also clear that based on his shot suppression averages he isn’t quite the defensive minded forward that some may view him as. Does that mean he’s a defensive liability? No. And, this brings me to why I view Pittsburgh as a great fit for him and his skill set.
Jim Rutherford said early-on that his plan was to have four scoring lines. He wanted players that can produce throughout the entire forward lineup. Bonino, with any combination of Fehr, Chris Kunitz, Pascal Dupuis, Sergei Plotnikov, or David Perron will provide that. To the surprise of some, numbers indicate that the Pittsburgh Penguins had one of their best defensive seasons over the last five years in 2014-15. The problem they ran into was a severe lack of offense down the stretch and that’s where their focus is. So, Bonino should benefit from that.
I view WOWY (with or without you) as an important metric as well, as it provides a look at the impact an individual has on their line mates. Let’s take a look at who Bonino spent the most time-on-ice with last season. (5v5 stats via stats.hockeyanalysis.com)
While his most frequent line mates are obviously Chris Higgins and Radim Vrbata, you’ll notice everyone’s uptick in CF/60 while alongside Bonino. This drives my point of his offensive impact and the fact that he drives offense unlike any other bottom-six center we’ve seen recently in Pittsburgh.
Vrbata and Alexandre Burrows suffer a big increase in CA/60 with Bonino, and that also speaks volumes to what I had mentioned previously. He isn’t going to be a defensive force, and will likely require wings that are more responsible in their own end. Eric Fehr playing on his right side will help tremendously in the defensive zone.
The graph below also represents his creation of more offense but worse defense.
Bonino has averaged roughly .45 points-per-game at the NHL level. However, he hadn’t topped fifty NHL games prior to 2013-14 with the Anaheim Ducks. In his first two full seasons (2013-14 and 2014-15) he has averaged .58 points-per-game. At $1.9 million he should prove to be a huge value to the Pittsburgh Penguins.
It should also be noted that Bonino had 10 points in 13 games-played against the Metropolitan Division last season. That’s counting two games against Pittsburgh in which he failed to record a point. So, he averaged 1.1 points-per-game against his new divisional opponents. Given the Pens struggles within their division, he and Fehr could be invaluable in that regard.
The Pens had a mission this summer. The plan was to get younger and faster. Part of that plan was providing scoring depth and rolling four lines that can contribute. As of right now, it looks like things are right on track. Bonino should provide a much needed boost to secondary scoring, and as long as he’s paired with the right wingers, he should still be more defensively responsible than who the Pens have slotted into bottom-six center roles over the last few seasons.
Next: Plotnikov is Well Worth Fantasy Consideration