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Jussi Jokinen has been a much talked about topic on Canes Country this season. The versatile forward is off to the worst start of his career and criticism of his play has run rampant. But is that criticism fair? Because of the offseason moves made by the organization, he was pretty much thrust into a position that he admittedly doesn't prefer playing. Couple that with having to replace the very solid and beloved Brandon Sutter and Jussi is not in an enviable situation. He has taken a number of inopportune penalties that have really seemed to hurt the Canes. Five of Jussi's seven minor penalties have resulted in the opposing team scoring on the ensuing Power Play. He also has one of the worst +/- ratings on the team and his point production is at a career low. So what is going on, is he just slumping or is there another factor?
So I decided to look back at Jussi's yearly stats to see if there was anything that could explain his struggles this season. To my surprise I found a couple of unusual trends in Jussi's history. First, while the majority of players show production improvement from their first season to the next couple, Jussi goes in the opposite direction. If his career is broken down into two 4 year segments, his production numbers actually regress every season in both segments. Second, I noticed that the more Jussi plays the center position, the more his production drops. If you take the same two 4 year segments, you notice that each season his amount of faceoffs taken increases. So lets take a look at each 4 year segment.
2005 - 2009 (Dallas Stars, Tampa Bay Lightning, Carolina Hurricanes)
Season | Games | TOI/G | Goals | Assists | Points | P/G | +/- | PPG | Shooting % | Shootout % | FO/G |
2005/2006 | 81 | 13:34 | 17 | 38 | 55 | 0.68 | +2 | 8 | 15.9 | 78.9 | 0.28 |
2006/2007 | 82 | 13:53 | 14 | 34 | 48 | 0.59 | +8 | 6 | 11.6 | 41.7 | 3.39 |
2007/2008 | 72 | 14:27 | 16 | 26 | 42 | 0.58 | -14 | 6 | 12.2 | 50.0 | 4.74 |
2008/2009 | 71 | 15:18 | 7 | 20 | 27 | 0.38 | -10 | 2 | 6.9 | 41.7 | 9.48 |
2005/2006 - Jussi's first season in the NHL would have to considered a successful one. While scoring was definitely up in the league that season, Jokinen finished tied for 100th in points, 1st in shootout %, and tied for 78th in assists. His 38 assists that season are his career high. He did all of this while average a career low of 13:34 TOI per game and only took 23 faceoffs.
2006/2007 - Jussi's second season saw a slight drop in most of his stats, with his TOI/G, his +/- and his FO/G the only stats that increased. A sophomore slump could be argued, but his numbers were pretty comparable to his first season and he still averaged over a half a point per game.
2007/2008 - Jussi's third season was probably a difficult one for him. He missed the majority of January with a knee injury and then was traded to Tampa Bay as part of the Brad Richards trade in late February. With Dallas, his TOI/G was down a little and his assist numbers were down a good chunk. His shooting %, shootout % and FO/G increased a little, but his overall points again declined. After being traded to Tampa, Jokinen's TOI/G, assists, and points took a nice jump. He only played 20 games for Tampa, but he had 12 assists and 14 points for the last place team in those games. His shooting % and +/- declined significantly in Tampa and overall Jussi experienced another production decline from the previous season.
2008/2009 - This would have had to be considered a disastrous year for Jussi. He had 2 different coaches in Tampa, was put on waivers and then was traded to the Canes. The season started out ok for him, as he notched 6 goals and 2 assists under coach Barry Melrose. But had 0 goals and 8 assists in 28 games under Rick Tocchet. He was averaging the most TOI to date in his career and he basically doubled the amount of faceoffs he was taking, but he wasn't producing. With the trade to Carolina, he saw some improvement, but still only managed 1 goal and 0.44 ppg in 25 games. Then the Playoffs happened and Jussi got his swagger back. He had 7 goals, 4 assists and 3 game winners in 18 Playoff games and still averaged over 9 FO/G. But it appeared that he found the right fit for his game.
2009 - 2013 (Carolina Hurricanes)
Season | Games | TOI/G | Goals | Assists | Points | P/G | +/- | PPG | Shooting % | Shootout % | FO/G |
2009/2010 | 81 | 16:48 | 30 | 35 | 65 | 0.80 | +3 | 10 | 18.8 | 44.4 | 3.27 |
2010/2011 | 70 | 17:13 | 19 | 33 | 52 | 0.74 | +3 | 8 | 14.0 | 20.0 | 4.57 |
2011/2012 | 79 | 17.40 | 12 | 34 | 46 | 0.58 | -2 | 3 | 10.2 | 33.3 | 10.54 |
2012/2013 | 21 | 15:37 | 4 | 3 | 7 | 0.33 | -4 | 2 | 10.3 | N/A | 10.19 |