MacKenzie Weegar’s exceptional season continues to be a bright spot for the Calgary Flames

The Calgary Flames are officially now at the All-Star Break and will not have another game until February 6 when they head out onto the road and face the Boston Bruins. The season that many had hoped to be a bounce-back year for the club has not gone as planned, as the team has a 22–22–5 record that leaves them five points out of a playoff spot.

While the year has been a disappointment, to say the least, one of the lone bright spots the team has had this year has been the play of MacKenzie Weegar, as he is in the midst of putting up the best offensive totals of his career and sits near the top of goals scored by all defencemen at this point in the year.

I have already touched on this topic earlier this season, but Weegar’s play has only been more impressive as of late, and with myself being the Weegar fan I am, I thought I should dig back into the year that he is having once again. Spoiler alert; he’s been pretty darn good.

Weegar is (still) near the top among defencemen scoring

The last time I wrote about Weegar, he was tied for second amongst all defencemen in goals scored. Where does he rank today? You guessed it, still tied for second only trailing behind Rasmus Dahlin by one goal. Weegar has already surpassed his career-high in goals scored (which was eight when he was with the Panthers); he currently sits at 12 and there are still 33 games left.

Weegar is still scoring at a 20-goal pace, and with three goals in his last four games, it looks like the goals are not stopping. He has been all over everything, shooting more than past seasons, getting more shots through than past seasons, and obviously, he is scoring more than he has in the past. He has 29 points on the year which has him tied for 22nd among all rearguards, but he is just two points away from his season total from last year, again in just 49 games.

I think the most impressive stat I have found for Weegar’s goal production is that 11 of his 12 goals have come at even strength. That has him tied for first with Quinn Hughes in that regard. Weegar has been getting more time on the Flames’ first power play unit of late; however, all of his production has come at even strength—which is something we were promised about Weegar when he came over from the Panthers. In short, offensively he has not disappointed this year.

Sacrificing defence for more offence

We know how well Weegar has been offensively this year, but the question has become: has he sacrificed his play on the defensive side of the puck for more offence? At least for this season, the answer has been yes.

I still think Weegar has been a stud on both sides of the puck, and Ryan Huska‘s new defensive system has been a mess on its own, so everyone’s defensive metrics have taken a hit this—yes, that even means Chris Tanev. I don’t think that is necessarily a bad thing though, the Flames needed more offence, they are not going to score their way out of problems, as we have seen this year, so having the guys on the backend create more offence is a good thing.

All of Weegar’s offensive metrics from a year ago are up, and his defensive numbers are way down from his past years. Just take a look at these two charts down below from ARHockeyStats.

This was Weegar a year ago:

Now this is Weegar this season:

Granted, the data sources have changed for these cards, so take these numbers with a grain of salt. However, no matter the source, the differences are stark even just from a comparative standpoint.

As you can see, he has been much more active on the offensive side and in transition, he has not been on the level of a Cale Makar or anything, but he has been in the upper echelon of the league in that regard. Sure, I would love it if his defensive numbers were a little bit better, but in saying that the Flames need offence, and I would not change a thing that Weegar has been doing this season.

Feed Weegar more

If the Flames want any chance of making the playoffs they will have to find a way to win on almost every night, which means their best players will have to be their best players. It is time to fully hand Weegar over the reigns of the team’s #1 defenceman and let him continue to cook.

It would be pretty fun to see him hit the 20-goal threshold, and with the way he has been going, it is not fully out of reach. So let’s hope that Weegar continues to fire at all cylinders once the All-Star Break comes to a close.