The Calgary Flames have a high-scoring defenceman on their roster and it’s no other than MacKenzie Weegar. His phenomenal season has been talked about at length, but I wanted to dive deeper into his analytics to determine where his impact is truly coming from. Spoiler: He’s still underrated around the league for his body of work.
Weegar’s been touted for his defensive play, yet is leading the league in goals among defencemen. What What can we make of Weegar’s season? Let’s take a look.
Weegar’s season overall
Production numbers
MacKenzie Weegar is having his best offensive season in terms of production. He’s suited up for all 56 games of the Flames’ season scoring 15 goals plus 18 assists for 33 points. This puts Weegar on some pretty solid paces for a full 82 games. Starting with goals, he’s on pace to finish the season with 22 goals despite never hitting double digits before this season. On to points and the pace is 48 in a full 82 games. This would be a career-high for Weegar by four points. It wouldn’t be his best in regards to points per game as he gets edged by his 2020–21 season where he had 36 points in 54 games in the shortened year.
Still, I feel the biggest appeal to his production is his goal scoring. He’s gone from his career-best being a narrow miss of double digits with eight goals to almost doubling it already and is on pace to nearly triple it. Weegar sits alone at the top of goal scoring by defencemen. His 15 goals tops the three defencemen tied in second by one.
On top of that, he’s doing this mainly at 5v5 too, with only three goals coming in other situations. He leads defencemen in 5v5 goals with 12, but this lead is by three goals. Weegar plays a large amount with just over 22 minutes a night so he definitely has more time to score. But Weegar leads the league in goals per 60 by a defenceman at 5v5 and is narrowly second to only Thomas Harley in all situations.
Even his overall production places high across the league. He’s tied for 18th in defensive scoring with his 33 points and is one point shy of being tied for 16th. When you limit it to just 5v5 scoring, Weegar actually moves up. He becomes tied with a plethora of other defencemen for 14th in scoring with 20, just one point off of top 10. Switching it to even strength, Weegar goes back to being tied at 18th with 24.
On-ice statistics
Moving away from production and looking to on-ice numbers, Weegar hasn’t been as strong as past seasons, but I think this derives from a change system instead of declination in play. Stats via NaturalStatTrick.com at 5v5.
| Player/Team | CF% | xGF% | SCF% | HDCF% |
|---|---|---|---|---|
| MacKenzie Weegar | 52.06 | 50.39 | 49.62 | 50.54 |
| Calgary Flames Rank | 1st | 3rd | 2nd | 3rd |
| League Rank | 58th | 97th | 108th | 101st |
Weegar’s stats don’t look great. His CF% is solid with his xG% and HDCF% just passing the 50% mark. But it’s nothing special unfortunately. When compared to the other defencemen who have played 400+ minutes, Weegar’s rankings are iffy. He’s in the top half for each stat but his highest placement league wide being 58th is a little disheartening to be honest. Being around the 100th spot for the next three puts him around league average for all.
There’s only been three other Flame defencemen who have played 400+ minutes this season, and compared to them, once again it doesn’t paint anything for Weegar. His lowest ranking being third isn’t too bad considering that these were placements by the decimal.
The drop in all Flames defencemen has me thinking this is more of a result of a system change. Darryl Sutter always had them taking tons of shots which stacks up all these stats. Ryan Huska on the other hand doesn’t use that strategy, taking away chances for the stats to grow. Also, Huska isn’t as defensively structured using Weegar more offensively which I think has impacted his defensive results.
HockeyViz
Using a couple of analytic models could help get a better picture of Weegar’s season so we’ll start with HockeyViz.com and the isolated impact chart.
This chart shows what most would say to be the opposite of what they would expect a Weegar chart to look like this season. When we look we’ll see that this lists offence as a struggle for Weegar and defence as a definite strength. He has a -3% score in the offensive zone with a majority of that offence coming from the middle of the back of the zone. Areas with a lack of offence is the slot and around the net.
With how this model works, that gives us a better idea of why he has a negative offensive score. A ton of shots and offence being near the point is good, but that’s a low-danger area. Then you add that high-danger areas such as the slot and net have scarce offence generation and the negative score makes some sense. Weegar has obviously been outperforming a negative impact based on his goal and point production.
Moving on to defence, this model claims that Weegar hasn’t missed a beat defensively. He sits with a score of -10% for defence which would put him as one of the better defenders in the NHL. Blue covers the chart which is great but the fact that area near the slot has the deepest blue is even better.
EvolvingHockey
Now going over to Evolving-Hockey.com and using their player cards, we are presented with a chart that is pretty much the opposite of the previous. Weegar’s offence is incredible, placing in the 96th percentile. That would mean he’s among the best in the league in terms of offensive score. A strong portion of that looks to be carried by his xGAR being around or above +21.
Then you look at his defence and suddenly things don’t look so good. He sits in the 22nd percentile, making a good majority of the league placing higher than him. There’s no crazy score like his +21 xGAR with his offence but it’s still not looking great regardless.
It’s interesting to see two models vary so differently but that comes down to how the model is coded. That’s why I believe a mix of looking at multiple models and watching is the best way to determine a player overall.
Another great season from MacKenzie Weegar
MacKenzie Weegar has become a staple on the Flames’ back end. He is without a doubt the best defencemen on the Flames blueline. Last season he received a lot of praise for his defensive play, this year it’s for his play at the other end. Weegar’s production has risen, especially his goal scoring.
He’s on pace to and has already set career highs in production stats. His underlying numbers haven’t been as strong as past seasons, and models can’t seem to agree on him but MacKenzie Weegar is having a great year deserving of more appreciation.
Photo by Brett Holmes/Icon Sportswire
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