Coming in at number 15 in our report card series is Laurent Dauphin. This one, admittedly, came as a bit of a surprise to me but we’ll get into why later.
When using the 120 points available in the ranking system, Dauphin finished with 32%. He didn’t excel in any category being fourth-worst on the team in both goals for percentage and expected goals for percentage. He did net 14/32 (post weighting) in the category of points/60. He was also only seventh-worst on the team in terms of Corsi.
What also sunk him is that he had the second-lowest defensive zone draws/60.
Personally, I like the way that he plays. He plays big. It came as a total surprise to me that he’s only 6’0” and 186 lbs according to the NHL website.
All year he honestly seemed like someone that has all of the tools to be an NHLer but doesn’t quite make his decisions fast enough.
That said, Dauphin was a feel-good story this year. A 27-year-old who’s had little more than a cup of coffee in “the show” finds a role for himself and favour with a new coach.
He made the league minimum last year and was picked up in free agency by the Arizona Coyotes. Last year I also thought he would have been a sneaky good pick-up for a team going into the playoffs because of the aforementioned “big” style he plays.
He would probably be a lot more useful to a team that can insulate his lack of play driving and utilize the fact that he seems to be able to outscore his situations, that does not describe Arizona.
In conclusion, I would say that he’s an NHLer and it’s great to see him get his shot and now a different opportunity with the Arizona Coyotes, but he’s worth what he’s worth.
For more info on the model I used, check out the introduction to this series.
#15: Laurent Dauphin
#16: Paul Byron
