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Tuesday, December 06, 2011

Friends, Friends, Friends: Moulson, Tavares

Thanks to @BonersJams for suggesting looking into this topic.

Matt Moulson has scored 74 goals as an Islander -- since start of 2009-10, only 11 players have scored more.

His question, how many were assisted by John Tavares?

The (snarky) answer:  A lot.

The real answer: 42 -- but it gets better than that.

Tavares assisted on 10 of Moulson's 30 in 2009-10
He assisted on 21 of Moulson's 31 in 2010-11.
This season, Tavares has assisted on 11 of Moulson's 13 goals, meaning of the 44 goals Moulson has scored in the last 14 months, Tavares has assisted on 32 of them (72.7%)

The only two goals Moulson has scored this season without a Tavares assist was on November 7th in Boston, and his final goal on Saturday.  Tavares was on ice for both of those goals, but did not get a point.

Tavares recorded 16 assists on Moulson's final 24 goals last season, and was on the ice for every one of them.  (This included a streak of 9 straight Moulson goals in which Tavares earned an assist.)

The last time Moulson scored a goal without Tavares on the ice was over a year ago: November 17, 2010 against Tampa.  Moulson scored at 17:26 of the second period, just six seconds after he got on the ice ... and before his buddy Tavares could replace Zenon Konopka, the puck was in the net.

So -- for the last 37 goals Moulson has scored, Tavares has assisted on 27 of them, and been on the ice for the other ten.

 
Forever1940 is the nom de plume of Eric Hornick, statistician on Islander home telecasts since 1982. Visit my blog: NYISkinny.com and follow me on Twitter @ehornick

2 comments:

Anonymous said...

Just a theory of mine: first thing Garth did after drafting JT was to draft his former juniors teammate De Haan in what many considered an overdraft.

One of his next moves was to sign FOJT Matt Moulson. More recently, he drafted another FOJT Ryan Strome. It strikes me that Garth was leaving nothing to chance in getting JT to sign an extension. These moves were his way of saying, "This is your team, JT."

Eric Hornick said...

He wouldn't be the first Isles GM to follow that route. On January 5, 1973 Bill Torrey traded Terry Crisp to Philadelphia in exchange for two players. Glen Irwin became a footnote to history; Jean Potvin was the other. Five months later Torrey drafted his brother.