5 NHL Players Who Won’t Sustain 1st Half Success

Several NHL players unexpectedly emerged in the 1st half of 2016-17 as they tend to do at the beginning of every season.  Being able to sustain that success over the grind of an 82-game season is another story.  Today, we’ll take a look at five players that may struggle to replicate their early success.

Former United States Secretary of Defense Donald Rumsfeld once gave the following, now famous, response when asked about the threat of terrorism: “There are known knowns. These are things we know that we know. There are known unknowns. That is to say, there are things that we know we don’t know. But there are also unknown unknowns. There are things we don’t know we don’t know.”

At first glance this may seem like a confusing concept; however, it makes a lot of sense and can be applied to many different areas of life. One of these areas should be the evaluation of hockey players.

How so?

To start, “known knowns” are the type players that don’t offer a lot of surprise. As fans, we know what they are going to produce and, for the most part, the quality of play that they bring to the ice. These are the Sidney Crosby’s and Marc-Edouard Vlasic’s of the world. Each year, it’s known that Crosby will be near the league lead in scoring, and it’s known that Vlasic will be one of the best shutdown defensemen in the game. Even Auston Matthews could be considered to have crossed that territory. He was a touted as a generational talent, and despite a small sample size, has been exactly that.

fits the bill for this sort of player.

That leaves us with “unknown unknowns”.

Rumsfeld defined unknown unknowns as ‘things we don’t know we don’t know’. This notion can be applied to hockey players regarding those that suddenly break out, putting forth a year that is significantly more productive than anticipated. Seemingly out of nowhere a player will find another level, a level that was previously unknown to fans, management, and potentially even the player himself. The reason for this breakout year can be anything from a spike in playing time to simply a greater sense of maturity. Unfortunately, often times these breakouts don’t last an entire season, and fall back down to their previous levels of production in the second half of the year. It’s difficult for a player to sustain success over a full 82 game schedule, especially when they’re playing at a level so far above their ability.

This article is dedicated to those ‘unknown unknowns’; specifically, those who will fall back down to earth during the final half of the season. Here are the top 5 NHL players that have experienced a first half significantly better than expected, and won’t be able to put up the same kind of production over the rest of the way.