Regular season
Playoffs
Key Stat: Chiasson’s Corsi-For percentage was 44.0, the third-lowest among all Caps forwards.
Interesting Stat: Chiasson’s 92 shot attempts were the fewest he’s had in his five full NHL seasons.
The Good: Making the team out of training camp after joining the club on a tryout contract, the 27-year-old was as productive as likely could have been expected. In the playoffs, his lone goal came in Game 6 against the Pittsburgh Penguins to open the scoring; Evgeny Kuznetsov went on to win the game and the series in overtime.
The Bad: Although Capitals general manager Brian MacLellan should be satisfied with the value he got out of Chiasson’s one-year, $660,000 deal, there wasn’t much for him to write home about. None of his possession metrics were encouraging, and both his goals and his assists per game numbers were the exact same they were when he was with the Calgary Flames in 2016-17. He also averaged the lowest ice time of his career (11:46), but that can be at least partially owed to the amount of talent ahead of him in the lineup.
The Video:
The Charts:
Chiasson’s Season, Game-by-Game (via HockeyViz, explained here):
Chiasson and His Linemates (chart by @muneebalamcu):
Chiasson’s 5v5 Teammates and Competition (via HockeyViz, explained here):
Chiasson’s 5v5 Usage (chart by @muneebalamcu):
Chiasson’s With-or-Without You (via HockeyViz, explained here):
Chiasson’s Rolling Shot-Attempt (Corsi) -For Percentage (chart by @muneebalamcu):
Chiasson’s Player Traits and Performance (chart by @RK_Stimp, data by @ShutdownLine, Tableau here):
The Vote: Rate Chiasson below on a scale of 1-10 (10 being the best) based on his performance relative to his potential and your expectations for the season – if he had the best year you could have imagined him having, give him a 10; if he more or less played as you expected he would, give him a 5 or a 6; if he had the worst year you could have imagined him having, give him a 1.
The Discussion: As illustrated above, the journeyman winger played a minimal role on last year’s team. Currently a free agent, it’s apparent that Chiasson will be on his fourth team in six years this fall. But should the Caps consider bringing him back? And what would it take for him to earn a “10” next year?