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Putting Johnny Gaudreau’s on-ice excellence into context
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Photo credit: Sergei Belski-USA TODAY Sports
Ryan Pike
Sep 8, 2024, 10:00 EDTUpdated: Sep 8, 2024, 00:05 EDT
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Folks, it’s been just over a week since the sudden, tragic deaths of Johnny and Matthew Gaudreau in New Jersey. We’ve spoken and written quite a bit about Gaudreau’s career and his impact both on and off the ice. We felt it was important to put his on-ice exploits into their proper context, so we dug into his numbers a bit.
Simply put: they don’t call you Johnny Hockey unless you’re really good at hockey. And Johnny Gaudreau was very, very good at hockey.

All-time Flames production

In the history of the Flames franchise, 600 skaters have played at least one regular season game.
Gaudreau, an undersized fourth-round selection from 2011, amassed 210 goals and 399 assists for 609 points in 602 games for the Flames franchise.
  • 602 games played is 12th all-time, trailing Jarome Iginla, Mikael Backlund, Mark Giordano, Robyn Regehr, Al MacInnis, Theo Fleury, Jim Peplinski, Sean Monahan, TJ Brodie and Gary Suter
  • 210 goals is ninth all-time, trailing Iginla, Fleury, Joe Nieuwendyk, Gary Roberts, Kent Nilsson, Lanny McDonald, MacInnis and Monahan.
  • 399 assists is fifth all-time, trailing MacInnis, Iginla, Fleury and Suter.
  • 609 points is fifth all-time, trailing Iginla, Fleury, MacInnis and Nieuwendyk.
  • 438 even strength points is third all-time, trailing Iginla and Fleury.
Reportedly part of the Flames’ sales pitch in 2022 when trying to lock Gaudreau into a long-term deal in Calgary was “Hey, you could re-write the record books.” He would’ve been at (or near) the top of every offensive category had he played in a red sweater for a little longer, but man, he still appears extremely prominently all over the record books.
And while it’s not exclusively Flames production, between 2014-15 to 2023-24 – Gaudreau’s full NHL seasons – he was ninth in the NHL in points. He was borderline elite offensively for an entire decade.

Single-season Flames production

We’ve established that Gaudreau was really good for awhile. But how good was he at the peak of his powers? Uh, very.
Here are the five biggest single-season point totals from a Flames player in franchise history.
Player
Season
Points
Kent Nilsson
1980-81
131
Johnny Gaudreau
2021-22
115
Joe Mullen
1988-89
110
Bob MacMillan
1978-79
108
Guy Chouinard
1978-79
107
Gaudreau’s monster 2021-22 season, which saw him tied for second in the NHL in points behind only Connor McDavid, is the second-best in franchise history. (Nilsson’s record 131-point effort in 1980-81 placed him third in the NHL’s scoring race, behind Wayne Gretzky and Marcel Dionne.)
If you focus just on even strength production, Gaudreau looks even better. 90 of his 115 points that season were at even strength, which easily bested Chouinard’s 81 from 1978-79. Heck, 90 even strength points was the most by any NHLer since Jaromir Jagr had 95 in 1995-96.
Now, you’re probably looking at some of the names and dates for past high-scoring seasons and going “Yeah, but those other guys played in a high-scoring era!” Hockey-Reference includes “era-adjusted” point totals for players. Gaudreau’s 2021-22 season was era-adjusted to 111 points. Nilsson’s 1980-81 season was era-adjusted to 101 points. When adjusting for era, Gaudreau’s best season narrowly beats out Jarome Iginla’s era-adjusted 2001-02 season (110 points) for the best offensive campaign in franchsie history.

Most frequent collaborators

We dug into some Gaudreau goal data with help from the folks at Hockey-Reference. We found out some interesting stuff.
Gaudreau most frequently registered assists on goals by these five players:
  • Sean Monahan – 105
  • Elias Lindholm – 68
  • Matthew Tkachuk – 48
  • Boone Jenner – 26
  • Mark Giordano – 23
These five players more frequently registered assists on Gaudreau’s goals:
  • Sean Monahan – 80
  • Matthew Tkachuk – 39
  • Elias Lindholm – 34
  • Mark Giordano – 29
  • TJ Brodie – 21
Gaudreau and Monahan each generated 185 points on each others’ goals. That’s just shy of a quarter of Gaudreau’s career points and just over a third of Monahan’s points. Gaudreau assisted on 43% of Monahan’s goals, and Monahan assisted on 33% of Gaudreau’s goals. And when you consider they didn’t play on the same team for the last two seasons of Gaudreau’s career and that the Flames had largely moved Gaudreau away from Monahan at even strength late in their Flames run together… that’s a testament to how absolutely synced up those two players were offensively.
What was the most impressive aspect of Johnny Gaudreau’s career? Let us know in the comments!

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