How changing the value of secondary assists affects recent scoring races

Credit: John E. Sokolowski-USA TODAY Sports

This season saw one of the closest Hart Trophy races we’ve ever seen, with four really strong candidates for the award emerging with legitimate cases. And this isn’t a situation where voters were clearly snubbing the best player because they didn’t make the playoffs (like Taylor Hall winning and Nathan MacKinnon and Anze Kopitar being finalists for the trophy in 2017-18 when Connor McDavid should have won the award but didn’t make the playoffs). All four candidates are in the conversation because of their play.

However, it’s also created a conversation about assists and points, more specifically secondary assists. With Auston Matthews being part of the Hart Trophy talk, some have discredited his season because, despite almost hitting the 70-goal mark for the first time in over 30 years, he didn’t have as many points as Nikita Kucherov, MacKinnon and McDavid. Matthews was the odd man out when the other three were announced as the Hart finalists Tuesday. However, he was quite close to them in terms of primary assists; the issue is just that he didn’t have nearly as many secondary assists, hence the conversation around it.

Personally, I think less value should be placed in secondary assists. Points are points, but the context of what kind of points they are and how they get them are often ignored when using it to compare players. Zach Hyman scoring 54 goals by tapping in McDavid passes is a lot different than MacKinnon scoring 51 by creating a lot of those opportunities with his speed and skill, just like how Mikko Rantanen getting 104 points with 26 secondary assists is different than Matthews getting 107 points with only 14 secondary assists. Personally, I think they should either keep track of every assist by one team leading up to the goal or just have goals and primary assists, because secondary assists have as much value as the tertiary assist and so on. It basically ends up being noise when it comes to the grand scheme of evaluating point totals.

So with that in mind, I decided to take a look at how changing the value of secondary assists would alter the scoring race. I looked at the top 10 scorers from the past five seasons, and compared the results to when secondary assists have a normal value, are worth only half a point or are excluded altogether.

2023-24

Player	Points when 2nd Assists worth .5	Player	Primary Points	Player	All Points
1. Nikita Kucherov	125	1. Nikita Kucherov	106	1. Nikita Kucherov	144
2. Nathan MacKinnon	120.5	2. Nathan MacKinnon	101	2. Nathan MacKinnon	140
3. Connor McDavid	113	3. Connor McDavid	94	3. Connor McDavid	132
4. Artemi Panarin	103	4. Auston Matthews	93	4. Artemi Panarin	120
5. Auston Matthews	100	t-5. Artemi Panarin	86	5. David Pastrnak	110
6. David Pastrnak	98	t-5. David Pastrnak	86	6. Auston Matthews	107
7. Leon Draisaitl	92.5	7. J.T. Miller	81	7. Leon Draisaitl	106
8. J.T. Miller	92	t-8. Leon Draisaitl	79	8. Mikko Rantanen	104
9. Mikko Rantanen	91	t-8. Kirill Kaprizov	79	9. J.T. Miller	103
10. Kirill Kaprizov	87.5	t-8. Sam Reinhart	79	10. William Nylander	98

I alluded to how much closer Matthews is to Kucherov, MacKinnon and McDavid, and lo and behold, he sees one of the biggest changes in this season. He goes from having a 25-37 point gap in the actual scoring race to a 13-25 point gap with secondary assists at half value to a 1-13 point gap with only primary points. Suddenly the overall scoring race is much, much closer, and shows how close he is to the top scorers in the league when the thing he specializes at is worth as much as assists are. If secondary goals was a thing, Matthews would probably have an Art Ross or two already.

Beyond that top four, there is still some more movement. Panarin and Pastrnak see a bit of a drop compared to Matthews, which is how the Leafs sniper moves up two spots, and Draisaitl also moves down a bit, but no one suffers more than Rantanen, going from eighth to out of the top 10 all together. Miller and Kaprizov are probably the other biggest beneficiaries of this change, moving up a couple spots as well.

2022-23

Player	2nd Assists worth .5	Player	Primary Points	Player	Points
1. Connor McDavid	138.5	1. Connor McDavid	124	1. Connor McDavid	153
2. Leon Draisaitl	120	2. Leon Draisaitl	112	2. Leon Draisaitl	128
3. David Pastrnak	102.5	t-3. David Pastrnak	92	3. David Pastrnak	113
4. Mikko Rantanen	98.5	t-3. Mikko Rantanen	92	4. Nathan MacKinnon	111
5. Nathan MacKinnon	97.5	5. Jason Robertson	85	5. Nikita Kucherov	111
6. Jason Robertson	97	6. Nathan MacKinnon	84	6. Jason Robertson	109
7. Nikita Kucherov	94.5	7. Matthew Tkachuk	79	7. Matthew Tkachuk	109
8. Matthew Tkachuk	94	t-8. Nikita Kucherov	78	8. Mikko Rantanen	105
9. Elias Pettersson	89	t-8. Jack Hughes	78	9. Ryan Nugent-Hopkins	104
10. Jack Hughes	88.5	10. Elias Pettersson	76	10. Elias Pettersson	102

If you need proof that secondary assists can be random, look no further than Rantanen. He could have been viewed as a secondary assist merchant based on how 2023-24 went, but one season prior, he was on the other end of the spectrum. Rantanen finished with one more point than he did this season, but ends up with half of the secondary assists this year in spite of that. As a result, he jumps up from eighth to a tie for third place with Pastrnak, while his linemate MacKinnon actually dropped down a bit. I guess we know who was getting the secondary assists on their line that season.

Perhaps the least surprising change in this top 10 is Nugent-Hopkins. You probably don’t have to be an expert on hockey to know that his 2022-23 season was due to him riding the coattails of McDavid and Draisaitl, so when you devalue secondary assists, he drops off the face of the earth. Kucherov sees a similar drop off, but we at least know what he’s capable of as a player, hence why he followed that up with his performance this season, while Nugent-Hopkins finished with 67 points this year.

Oh, and McDavid still somehow had 124 primary points that year. The guy is nuts.

2021-22

Player	2nd Assists worth .5	Player	Primary Points	Player	Points
1. Connor McDavid	108	1. Connor McDavid	93	1. Connor McDavid	123
2. Johnny Gaudreau	103.5	2. Johnny Gaudreau	92	t-2. Johnny Gaudreau	115
t-3. Jonathan Huberdeau	99	3. Leon Draisaitl	88	t-2. Jonathan Huberdeau	115
t-3. Leon Draisaitl	99	t-4. Kirill Kaprizov	86	4. Leon Draisaitl	110
5. Kirill Kaprizov	97	t-4. Auston Matthews	86	5. Kirill Kaprizov	108
6. Auston Matthews	96	6. Steven Stamkos	85	t-6. Auston Matthews	106
7. Steven Stamkos	95.5	7. Jonathan Huberdeau	83	t-6. Steven Stamkos	106
8. Matthew Tkachuk	92.5	8. Matthew Tkachuk	81	8. Matthew Tkachuk	104
9. Mitch Marner	84	9. Kyle Connor	74	9. J.T. Miller	99
10. J.T. Miller/Kyle Connor	83.5	10. Mikko Rantanen/Alex Ovechkin	73	10. Mitch Marner	97

If there’s one thing I remember from the Hart Trophy conversation in 2021-22, it’s that there was a lot of discourse surrounding Huberdeau’s season. He finished the season tied for second in scoring, but many people questioned his value as an MVP, although most of it was surrounding his defensive play. However, in a year where he had 85 assists, you just know that he’s going to be punished in this new scoring system. With 32 of those 85 assists being secondary, it drops him from a tie for third to seventh place.

The other discourse surrounding this season was the main race for the Hart between McDavid and Matthews. It was Matthews’ 60 goals that won him out over McDavid’s 123 points, although the 17-point gap between the two raised some eyebrows from the hockey world. But, when you remove secondary assists, that turns into a seven-point gap, which is more than enough to justify 60 goals being the reason Matthews won the award.

2020-21

Player	2nd Assists worth .5	Player	Primary Points	Player	Points
1. Connor McDavid	94	1. Connor McDavid	83	1. Connor McDavid	105
2. Leon Draisaitl	72.5	2. Leon Draisaitl	61	2. Leon Draisaitl	84
3. Brad Marchand	62	3. Auston Matthews	56	3. Brad Marchand	69
4. Auston Matthews	61	4. Brad Marchand	55	4. Mitch Marner	67
5. Mitch Marner	60.5	5. Mitch Marner	54	t-5. Auston Matthews	66
t-6. Mikko Rantanen	57	6. Aleksander Barkov	51	t-5. Mikko Rantanen	66
t-6. Patrick Kane	57	t-7. Mikko Rantanen	48	t-5. Patrick Kane	66
8. Nathan MacKinnon	56.5	t-7. Patrick Kane	48	8. Nathan MacKinnon	65
9. Aleksander Barkov	54.5	t-7. Nathan MacKinnon	48	9. Mark Scheifele	63
10. Mark Stone	54	t-7. Sebastian Aho	48	10. Sidney Crosby	62

Another season, another year where eliminating secondary assists puts Matthews higher up in the scoring race. Not only does it move him up past Marchand and Marner, the gap between all three of them and the two Oilers at the top of the table shrinks immensely. McDavid is still in a league of his own, but Draisaitl shrinks much closer to the rest of the group, only five points ahead of Matthews. Considering this was around the time where the discourse between which player was better was at its peak, this scoring system would have provided some better context to the casual fan.

While Matthews was helped out again this season, the biggest beneficiary this season is easily Barkov. He finished the season with only seven secondary assists, so he goes from finishing four points outside of the top 10 to sixth place and only five points behind third place. On top of that, this season saw him take home his first (and right now only) Selke Trophy, putting together an all-around fantastic year. He at least got some Hart votes that year, but you could certainly make the case that he could have been higher than sixth in voting.

2019-20

Player	2nd Assists worth .5	Player	Primary Points	Player	Points
1. Leon Draisaitl	96	1. Leon Draisaitl	82	1. Leon Draisaitl	110
2. David Pastrnak	87	2. David Pastrnak	79	2. Connor McDavid	97
3. Connor McDavid	84.5	t-3. Connor McDavid	72	t-3. David Pastrnak	95
4. Nathan MacKinnon	82.5	t-3. Nathan MacKinnon	72	t-3. Artemi Panarin	95
5. Artemi Panarin	81	t-5. Artemi Panarin	67	5. Nathan MacKinnon	93
t-6. Brad Marchand	75.5	t-5. Patrick Kane	67	6. Brad Marchand	87
t-6. Patrick Kane	75.5	7. Auston Matthews	66	7. Nikita Kucherov	85
8. Auston Matthews	73	8. Brad Marchand	64	8. Patrick Kane	84
9. Nikita Kucherov	72.5	t-9. Jonathan Huberdeau	62	9. Auston Matthews	80
10. Jonathan Huberdeau	70	t-9. Mika Zibanejad	62	10. Jonathan Huberdeau/Jack Eichel	78

So when picking how far back I’d go with this experiment, I went with five years because it felt like a nice rounded number to use for an arbitrary cutoff without making this topic drone on too long. So it’s only a coincidence that we finish off this topic with the last time there was significant discourse surrounding the Hart Trophy, although it was for a much different reason.

The 2019-20 Hart Trophy will fondly be remembered by myself as the year that Draisaitl won because he didn’t suck when McDavid was injured. On the surface, that sounds like a legitimate enough reason to give him the award in the absence of his franchise-level teammate, much like how Evgeni Malkin won in 2011-12 while leading the league in scoring while Crosby was hurt. The difference is that Crosby missed 60 games that season, while McDavid missed seven. Yes, Draisaitl led the league in scoring, but McDavid had a higher points-per-game and really didn’t miss enough to time to justify the process for that voting, especially when McDavid still received 96 votes anyways.

While McDavid still has a similar gap to Draisaitl after devaluing secondary assists, it’s the fact that another player gets very close to the Art Ross in this alternate universe. With Draisaitl’s 28 secondary assists gone, he finishes just three points ahead of Pastrnak, who also split the Maurice “Rocket” Richard Trophy with Ovechkin. Once again, I think with this kind of context available to the average voter, the award might have gone to a different player that year.

On top of Pastrnak getting the benefits of this year’s scoring race, Kane and, once again, Matthews saw themselves climb up the rankings with secondary assists. Meanwhile, Panarin saw a similar hit to his point totals with secondary assists lessened despite finishing tied for third in scoring and third outright in Hart Trophy voting. Maybe this would have finally given MacKinnon his first Hart trophy since he was the only one not really affected by the change.

So what conclusions can be drawn from this? Considering how often one player would be punished one season by the changes and rewarded another year, it just goes to show how random secondary assists can be on a year-to-year basis. At the end of the day, there is a bit more noise to the evaluation of those in the context of scoring, especially when the other two ways to get points are by directly setting up the goal scorer and scoring the goal itself. There’s something about passing to the guy who passes to the guy who scores that loses a bit of credibility. Sometimes that can be an important part of an amazing passing play, and sometimes that can just be a defenseman chipping the puck out of the zone.

The only consistency throughout all of this is that Matthews seems to be allergic to secondary assists. Not that he never gets them, but he definitely gets them at a less frequent rate than most players, so devaluing them usually puts him in a much better light in the scoring race. Some of it might be luck or linemates, but it could also be because he acts as the trigger man on his line, so he’s either the focal point of passes from his linemates, or the first pass from Matthews will often be to a linemate in a great scoring position due to defenses drifting towards him in an attempt to stop him from scoring. It’s one of the many nuances that comes with evaluating scoring in the NHL, and why context is often super important when using it to compare players.

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