With the Canucks now past the quarter mark of the season, it’s a good time to check in on how individual players have performed based on their underlying numbers. We’re now at the point in the schedule where both positive and negative narratives can begin to form, so I figured it would be a fun exercise to take a look at which players are outliers on each end of the spectrum.

This article will touch on two Canucks who have been overperforming and two who have been underperforming on the scoresheet based on a few key statistics and factors in their game. For the purposes of this piece, I have defined overperformers as players who have more points than they ought to based on their underlying numbers, and underperformers as those who have fewer points than they ought to.

In a small sample size of 22 games,pPlayer statistics can still vary wildly. Outliers with absurdly high or low shooting percentages (Sh%), actual versus expected goal differentials and point-scoring paces relative to their career numbers still exist all over the league and are yet to normalize. Over an 82 game season, normalization will happen and we are here to identify which Canucks could experience it the most.

We’ll start with those who are putting up more points than one would expect a quarter way through the season.

Virtanen has taken steps in his game and one could argue that his great start relative to the rest of his career isn’t him overperforming, but that instead, his progression is understandably resulting in him having a career year.

I’m not ready to say he will have a career year yet since the season is still so young, but it is reasonable to expect a 23-year-old former sixth overall pick to continue trending upwards. However, a few of his numbers indicate that he will not continue to hit the scoresheet as frequently as he has been.

Jake currently boasts a 13.6% shooting percentage, which is the 4th highest on the team, with only the individual members of the Lotto Line and Tim Schaller sitting ahead of him in this category. While Virtanen is improving his goal-scoring ability, he hasn’t yet proven that can snipe with the best on this team. He may very well top his career average shooting percentage of 8.8% in this campaign, but it likely won’t be by the massive margin we are seeing now.

Another big reason to expect Virtanen’s goal scoring pace to decrease is his overperformance when we compare actual goals vs expected goals (xG).

The graph above represents the difference between actual and expected goals in all strengths for each Canuck. Those with a bar extending to the right have scored more goals than NaturalStatTrick’s expected goal model says they should. Those with a bar extending to the left, for various possible reasons, haven’t scored as many goals as expected based on their shot volume, locations, situation, and type.

Over the course of a season, most players normalize closer to their xG counts. Although, xG models aren’t perfect and don’t account for shooter talent, so snipers like David Pastrnak and Elias Pettersson will outperform their xG.

We can see that Virtanen ranks only behind Alex Edler in actual vs expected goal differential. He’s scored 6 goals on the year but has an xG of only 3.53. Unless Jake is able to develop the shooting touch and finishing ability that members of the Lotto Line have, then we can expect his goals per game to come down a bit.

As a winger who’s received longer looks higher in the lineup because of injury to Micheal Ferland it will be worthwhile to keep an eye on his time on Horvat’s wing if Ferland is able to make his way back into the lineup.

Before his injury, there was a lot of positive talk about Sutter’s game. However, he hasn’t scored a point in his last five games, which is a trend we shouldn’t be too surprised by considering his production patterns from previous years.

Sutter has managed to put up 5 goals and 3 assists through 19 games, good for 0.42 points per game and 0.26 goals per game. His career points and goals per game rates are 0.38 and 0.20 respectively.

He’s performing above both of those career averages, which could prove to be tough to maintain as he ages and especially coming back from the groin injury he sustained last Tuesday.

What may be most surprising is Sutter’s 5 goals on 1.97 xG. That gives him a differential between actual and xG of 3.03, which ranks 5th highest on the team. Sutter also not a player you would expect to overperform his expected goals.

In fact, during his four years in Vancouver prior to this one, he scored 37 goals on 33.67 xG, scoring slightly more than his xG.

These are the Canucks who should see an uptick in their point totals if they continue this level of play as the sample size grows.

To begin the season, you would have been hard-pressed to find a Canuck more snakebitten than Horvat.

Throughout the beginning of the season, we saw the Canucks’ captain whiff on shot attempts and have passes bounce over his stick, causing him to miss out on scoring attempts that statistics wouldn’t capture. This may have been due to the increased pressure and spotlight that comes along his new leadership role, or simply bad puck luck, but whatever the case may be, the 24-year-old centre hasn’t produced at the level many had hoped so far this season.

Based on some of the same metrics used to identify the overperformers above, we can see that Horvat has appeared to underperform offensively. A few of his numbers indicate that he should have shown up more on the scoresheet thus far, which is something that we can expect to normalize as the season progresses.

The easy number to look at is Horvat’s shooting percentage of 10.4% in all strengths. If he finished the season at that rate, it would be the lowest of his career. His career average is 12.2%, so it’s reasonable to expect that number to increase slightly.

We will also revisit the graph above that shows Horvat on the wrong side of zero. In all strengths, Horvat has 7 goals and 7.3 xG, underperforming by 0.3 goals, but at 5 on 5 he has only 2 goals and 4.05 xG. With the currently low conversion rate from Horvat at 5 on 5, there’s definite room for improvement.

This may not seem like a large margin, but extrapolated over 82 games would give Horvat roughly 7 goals and 15.1 xG. Only converting on half of one’s xG for a player of Horvat’s caliber is a large differential and a lot of goals missed out on at 5 on 5, which is why I wouldn’t expect that trend to continue.

Heat maps from HockeyViz.com that show a player’s offensive isolated impact at even strength compared to the rest of the league. In this case, the heat maps show that Bo is able to get many of his chances in high danger areas and that he performs 18.5% better than league average.

We can see that Horvat is actually generating more offense this year than the last two, but for whatever reason, that hasn’t translated to the scoresheet. Despite his increased impact, he’s producing points at a lesser rate than he did last season.

Another factor that may affect Horvat’s opportunity to put up points is injuries to other Canucks. With Sutter out, Travis Green likes to lean on Horvat and give him more ice time. However, much of Sutter’s shifts that Horvat will get will start in the defensive zone. Additionally, Horvat could see a boost on his line when Roussel eventually returns to the lineup.

Leivo doesn’t quite fit the bill in all of the same ways that Horvat does as a player who should have more points based on their play. Based on career production, he’s having the best year of his career, but that’s mostly because he didn’t have much of a career to speak of while he was stuck in Toronto.

Although his points per game rate has jumped from 0.37 last season to 0.45 now, that increase should be by a larger margin. Simply put, Leivo should have more goals based on the shots he’s generated for himself.

No player on the team has a larger negative margin between actual and expected goals scored. After only 22 games Leivo has already been unlucky enough to underperform his 4.56 xG by 2.56. If this pace continued for a full season, Leivo would see himself score roughly 8 goals while xG models say he should have 17, which is unlikely to happen if he continues from the low and high slot areas as he is prone to do.

Also of note for Leivo is his 4.3 shooting percentage. Leivo has never been a sniper by any means, but any reasonable observer should expect that number to crawl back up closer to his career average of 9.3%.

For fantasy hockey enthusiasts in deep leagues, Leivo is the best buy-low candidate on the Canucks right now. If he continues this level of play and is able to get the ice time he has if the Canucks ever get fully healthy, which I believe he can, then more goals will come.