The perception surrounding Antoine Roussel needs to change.
It’s true that he’s a feisty character who gives the Canucks a much-needed dose of grit and tenacity, but for far too long it’s become a defining characteristic that overshadows his tangible value.
That ability to drive quality two-way play was something The Athletic’s very own JD Burke highlighted in a piece advocating for the 29-year-old Frenchmen in the aftermath of his July 1st signing.
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Then in November, I took it a step further and claimed Roussel was an underrated playmaker and had the tools and offensive results to warrant an extended opportunity in a top-six that was cycling through wingers like Tim Schaller on Bo Horvat’s line.
The results this season are certainly congruent from both perspectives.
On the scoring side of things, Roussel’s nestled in as a valuable secondary contributor with 29 points in 63 games. On first glance, it doesn’t sound too impressive, until you realize that all but one of those points has come at even-strength. His 26 5-on-5 points this season are tied with Horvat for third on the team and just one behind Brock Boeser’s 27.
It’d be easy to scoff at those results in the name of a fluke season and while I’m sure the numbers will regress to some extent, the fact of the matter is Roussel’s been a really productive offensive player at 5-on-5 over a span of the last three seasons. The most encouraging factor is that he’s attained his production without reliance on secondary assists.
Roussel ranks 92nd among all NHL forwards since 2016-17 with 1.44 primary points per hour — scoring at a higher rate than Jonathan Huberdeau, William Nylander, Max Pacioretty and more during that span.
When dividing the production by point type it’s evident that the majority of his scoring has come on the back of his playmaking acumen — ranking 37th among all NHL forwards in primary assists per hour.
It’s hard to believe the cohort of players that he finds himself in and while we’ll certainly investigate the sustainability of his offence later in this piece, we’re dealing with a sample of roughly 200 games for each skater.
Naturally, these results will be met with skepticism when you consider that this looks to be the first season where he’ll crack 30 points. How can Roussel be such an efficient point scorer and yet fail to hit such a reasonable plateau?
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There are many reasons for this, but I think the biggest factor is that we tend to underrate just how drastically powerplay time inflates point production. Last season, for example, only seven forwards in the entire league hit 50 5-on-5 points. A significant chunk of a top forward’s total points comes from special teams and it’s not uncommon to have 40 percent or even more of their production come from the man advantage.
A great example of this from last year is Sidney Crosby who scored 89 points despite getting just 35 at 5-on-5.
Powerplay scoring is important and I think as a whole the analytics community tends to undervalue special teams performance, but the flipside is that players like Roussel who don’t play special teams are naturally bound to have deflated final point totals and thus get underrated.
With less than 50 NHL forwards reaching 40 5-on-5 points last season, I’m sure you can understand why it’d be so difficult for someone like Roussel to pile up points and create attention when he doesn’t play on the man advantage.
The other factor, of course, is linemate quality. Roussel has spent a significant chunk of his ice-time with Horvat this season and it’s led to significant gains for both players (more on this later).
Roussel never had that consistent opportunity in Dallas, though it’s worth mentioning he scored at a top-six rate with Tyler Seguin. Of course, there’s also the fact that the Stars have never really employed a quick counterattack type system that would suit to Roussel’s offensive strengths, whereas the Canucks love to hit teams in transition.
Overall, consistently getting say 25+ points at 5-on-5 from middle-of-the-lineup players like Roussel doesn’t sound terribly impressive, but as the left winger’s scoring comparables suggest, it really does represent a coup.
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How sustainable is Roussel’s production?
On the surface, there’s nothing incredibly odd or peculiar about Roussel’s production this season. His individual points percentage (the percent of on-ice goals he gets a point on) is a tad high as are his on-ice and individual shooting percentages, but it’s nothing that screams major regression.
But to go a step deeper we need to analyze microdata. Shots and scoring chances are what lead to goals and if Roussel consistently contributes to them, we’d expect his production to be more than just an extended run of luck.
The importance of using microdata in predicting future performance is outlined by Athletic colleague Ryan Stimson as part of a piece that unveiled his expected points model.
Primary shot assists are more than two times better at predicting future primary assists than past primary assists, while danger zone assists are more than four times predictive.
Of course, this data isn’t available publicly and thus requires manual tracking. Fortunately, I’ve collected a significant sample that I can share.
Primary shot contribution (PSC) is counted when a player either shoots or makes a pass that directly leads to a shot attempt
The data above shows that Roussel doesn’t drive a ton of volume as far as contributing to shot attempts. The issue with using just this lens is that it doesn’t take shot quality into account — a pass back to the point that leads to a low percentage chance is treated equally as a pass across the slot in a high danger scoring position.
It’s why someone who often settles for low danger plays like Jake Virtanen gets overvalued through this lens, while Horvat doesn’t reflect as positively. To account for this we can isolate and look at just the primary contributions to scoring chances.
Roussel ranks fourth among Canucks forwards in scoring chance contributions per hour. His playmaking proficiency is highlighted when you look at the passes that directly lead to scoring chances.
A danger shot assist includes Royal Road (an east-west pass that goes across the slot), behind the net and any other pass that leads to a shot in what’s considered the “home plate region.”
Roussel is behind only Pettersson and Horvat in making these kinds of high danger setups. He also leads Canuck forwards in my dataset for Royal Road passes — arguably the most dangerous passes of them all.
Shots preceded by these Royal Road passes typically carry a shooting clip in the 25-30 percent range.
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In simple terms, this means that while Roussel may not contribute to a ton of shots when he does, it’s typically a high-quality chance. Quality over quantity it seems.
It’s certainly a unique situation, but when examining past microdata, it’s evident that it’s been a constant throughout Roussel’s career.
SCB% represents the percentage of on-ice shot attempts that a player contributes to. The higher this rate, the more volume the player is driving. Having said that, the metric below is expected primary points per hour and is what we’re really concerned about.
Roussel’s produced expected primary points at a legitimate second-line rate. It’s unrealistic to expect Roussel to hang around star playmakers for primary assists moving forward, but there’s no denying he has legitimate offensive value at 5-on-5.
Naturally, the next question pertains to how a player with Roussel’s reputation creates offence.
The answer goes back to my November piece where I highlighted Roussel’s ability to setup teammates on the rush. He hadn’t gotten an assist from a zone entry+pass play at that point in the season but Roussel’s speed, smarts and underrated passing skills all stood out in the video as tools that could lend itself in that regard moving forward.
Sure enough, Roussel has created some gorgeous goals on the rush.
A lot of these plays fly under the radar because they’re not overly dynamic or flashy setups, but Roussel displays subtle deception in how he’s able to create passing lanes for himself.
The proof is in the pudding too — Roussel leads Canuck forwards in completing a pass after 50 percent of his zone entries and is third on the team in passes off the rush.
As my research and analysis showed in a piece last month, zone entries with passes are far more likely to result in scoring chances and goals. This is also significant as far as projecting future production as I’ve found that the zone entry passing data was highly correlated with point production and more predictive of future points than virtually every public stat and many microstatistics.
Correlation between passes off the rush and points; all data collected at 5-on-5
This means that so long as Roussel can continue producing these chances off the rush and plays with linemates who can actually finish off his setups, we can continue to expect top-six like production at 5-on-5.
How Roussel has elevated Bo Horvat’s play
There’s no doubt that Roussel has benefitted from playing with Horvat — 13 of his 26 5-on-5 points have come when playing on his line. Intuitively it makes sense — you’re going to get more points as a playmaker if you’re setting up a good finisher like Horvat.
At the same time, it’s also crucial to point out how significantly Roussel has elevated Horvat’s play.
The Canucks have controlled a whopping 54.8 percent of shot attempts and 58 percent of scoring chances in the 250 minutes that Roussel and Horvat have spent as a duo.
Without Roussel, Horvat’s line has been drastically outshot, outchanced and outscored. Individually, Horvat has also struggled mightily — scoring just 1.25 points per hour away from Roussel — a rate equivalent to Loui Eriksson’s 5-on-5 pace.
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Of course, this isn’t meant to undermine Horvat’s contributions. He’s arguably had the toughest deployment of any NHL centre this year and it’s completely unfair to expect him to produce against top competition when he’s spent the season with decisively inferior linemates.
Instead, this is meant to positively highlight just how much of a difference Roussel has made when deployed in the top-six with Horvat.
The point production difference might be surprising, but the two-way results shouldn’t be a surprise given Roussel’s historical ability to tilt play in the right direction for his team.
Whenever you can combine 5-on-5 offensive production and excellent two-way play, you’re bound to be seen as one of the team’s most useful contributors. This much is reflected in Evolving Hockey’s WAR data — Roussel ranking as the Canucks’ third most impactful forward this season after Pettersson and Boeser.
Conclusion
Playmaking is one of the last things that comes to mind when thinking of Antoine Roussel and yet the 29-year-old has been one of the more underrated setup guys around the league. He’s been terrific at scoring 5-on-5 points and is among some superstar talent as far as primary assists per hour since the start of the 2016-17 season.
We obviously don’t expect Roussel to hang around those names moving forward, but there’s more than enough apparent in his offensive profile to suggest that he can continue to produce points at a top-six rate at even-strength. The scoring chance assist numbers are strong and there’s no denying his crafty knack of being able to find his linemates on the rush.
It’d be premature to label this a great free-agent signing as we’re only in season one of a four-year deal, but the early results are extremely encouraging as far as Roussel’s ability to drive two-way play and chip in offensively.
Mix in his ability to function as a sort of Energizer bunny and add physicality on the ice as well as his undrafted, underdog story and it’s no wonder why Roussel has drawn comparisons to former fan favourite Alex Burrows.
(Top photo: Christian Petersen/Getty Images)