05-22-2024, 10:50 PM(This post was last modified: 05-22-2024, 10:50 PM by eddiesnothere. Edited 1 time in total.)
In Season 73, the SHL’s New England Wolfpack remained one of the best teams in the league. They stormed to a 53-win season off the back of their franchise face and star center, Ivan Lacksamus. Lacksamus is effectively Mr. New England, a two-time SHL MVP, an All-Star consistently since S71, and a two-time Challenge Cup Champion, while wearing the C, the A, and the C again over his 10 year career.
That season, Lacksamus ran away with the league lead in points, with 65 goals and 77 assists. Most notably for our story, he ran away with the league lead in faceoff percentage, with an imposing 60.5% of faceoffs won.
But while better days were ahead for the Wolfpack, Lacksamus was only going to get older. It would mean someone else taking his place as the faceoff leader of the SHL.
While the Wolfpack were dominating, in Minnesota, Hai Nam Hoang broke out.
The Vietnamese center finally saw his icetime dip above 1200 minutes for the first time since roster turnover pushed him to limited roles. The 2nd round pick out of Great Falls logged a then-career-best in points with 38, and points with 35. Despite this, a 100-point campaign from Meta Knight, and the breakout season for fellow Team Japan star Alexi Piastri, the Minnesota Monarchs remained middling at best, snuck into the playoffs, and were gentlemanly-swept rudely by Winnipeg.
At the time Hoang was seen – and for the record, still is seen – as a second-line center on a team with an elite talent already bracketed in that position. Meta Knight has been the star for the Monarchs and likely will remain the first-line center, meaning a player developing into a Top-10 talent at the position will be limited to the second line.
No one, not even management in Minnesota, saw league-leading potential out of the overqualified 2nd line center.
Then came S74. By nearly every measure the Monarchs stook a step back, from 33 wins down to 27. Piastri had taken the full step as a star, but he was also engaged in a contract dispute with the organization. Their division rivals in Winnipeg and Texas were only getting stronger.
…and yet. Hoang put together an incredible season, from almost 40 goals and 81 points to nearly 50 goals, and 87 points. He was putting out elite scoring while playing with solid talent beside him.
But the unstated detail is this. Hai Nam Hoang was in another galaxy when it came to faceoffs.
In S73, Hoang participated in 946 faceoffs, a career high, and walked away with a faceoff win percentage of 57.7. Many other centers faced more, including Lacksamus and his teammate Jager, and they walked away with better percentages.
With a nearly identical workload, Hoang jumped to 61.2%, .8 higher than the center behind him, Jager. Similar players, like Evan Winter, Marton Diehm, Lias Ekholm-Gunnarsson, and specialists like Graj Virrok, Adrian O’Rugg, and Jarrod Lakemore, are in a world apart, only Jager and Hoang cleared the 60% threshold.
Teams didn’t pay much attention to that boost, though. The common observation is that Hoang’s numbers were bolstered by his slight deployment in comparison to other players. In fact, Makrus being in the conversation with Hoang for the lead in percentage helps to give context to that theory.
But Hoang was young, in just his 5th season, while Makrus was a season away from retirement, a reliable veteran who had 1st line potential in the past. Indeed, when S75 rolled around, Makrus fell right off the table in terms of faceoffs. In that same time, Hoang did see his numbers revert towards expectations.
But he still led all centers with a 59.5% win percentage, a percentage point ahead of every comparative 1st line center. While goals and points were a stepback, Hoang remained a strong player, with a point-per-game pace and a lead in his team’s goal race.
So what, right? A guy who sees less time on ice than other centers happens to have outlying numbers because the sample size is smaller, right? Hoang’s faceoff totals actually came down that season. This has to be a trend. Either the numbers stay down and Hoang remains a solid player that is swallowed up by competition, or he starts playing more minutes, sees more faceoffs, and his numbers drop off. And one part of this thinking was true. In S76, Hoang saw more faceoffs, in fact, he saw over 1000 faceoffs for the first time in his career.
But he did not regress. He got better, in fact. Hai Nam Hoang came away from S76 with an outstanding 62.9%, three percentage points above 2nd place Adrian O’Rugg. Hoang himself was 16th in points as a center, and 14th in assists, but as a whole, Hoang blossomed, with 35 goals and a career high 52 assists for 87 points, another career-best.
Visualized, it just puts into perspective how much Hoang has left the rest of the league behind. Marton Diehm was a competitor for Hoang for two seasons, but he fell off the table last year, and without him in the mix, the difference between Hoang and the star centers in the league are trying to catch a plane with a skateboard.
And what sets Hoang apart from the other players in the league that makes him so proficient. For Hoang, crediting his approach to the faceoff dot is unique, putting focus on his frame and strength, and his puck skills as a way to be strong on the puck, not relying totally on his ability to take faceoffs. It’s certainly an interesting way to approach such a niche part of the game, but it undoubtedly makes Hoang one of the best utility players in the league.
And what of the future? With Hoang regressing, it may be safe to say that his incredible S76 may be his ceiling for production, both for offense and for faceoffs. We may never see a stretch like this again, with a player like Hoang dominating such a niche part of the game. It’s worth mentioning many of the best utility players go unheralded, because bigger, more impressive stats, are often the bigger story.
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