Mikey Eyssimont is next up in our player review series. Did you know he had 11 goals last season? That seems like a lot more than we remembered, especially since it seemed every time he scored, it was in some weirdly unique way.
The Basics
Name: Mikey Eyssimont
Position: Forward
Counting Stats: 81 Games, 11 Goals, 14 Assists, 11:51 TOI
Extra Stats (5v5): 52.14 CF%, 50.42 SF%, 55.74 GF%, 47.90 xGF%, 51.25 HDCF%, .934 On-ice Save Percentage, 11.42 iXG
2023-24 Contract: First year of a 2-year, $1.60 million deal
Contract Status: Second year of a 2-year deal with an $800,000 cap hit. He’ll be an unrestricted free agent at the end of the contract.
The Charts
The Review
Mikey Eyssimont had himself a career year last season. Granted, that’s not a high barrier to achieve considering he’s had all of two full seasons in the NHL, but after bouncing around to three different teams in 2022-23, he found a home in Tampa, playing in 81 games and putting up 11 goals and 14 assists in just under 12 minutes of action.
Give Eyssimont credit. He might not have had a lot of ice time compared to other forwards on the team, but when he was skating, he was also shooting. How much was he shooting? Well, in 912 minutes of 5v5 time he put up 141 shots. That’s more than Steven Stamkos, Nick Paul, Tony Cirelli, and Victor Hedman. In fact, his 9.27 shots/60 at 5v5 was tied for the team lead with Nikita Kucherov last season. Talk about a stat we didn’t think would be true.
Unfortunately, while he was out there churning out shots on goal, he wasn’t having the best of shooting luck as his 6.38% shooting percentage ranked toward the bottom of the team. Still, pure volume at 5v5 play led to him scoring 9 times, which ranked 7th on the team last season. He was also one of the few forwards that can claim positive possession numbers in shots and high-danger chances.
His shot chart from Evolving Hockey shows that he is more than willing to unleash his wrist shot from just about anywhere on the ice.
As you can see he really did prefer the the wrist shot, but he also led the team in wraparound shots with 6 according to NHL.com’s shot stats. It seems last season he was the living embodiment of the “you can’t score if you don’t shoot” philosophy.
More so than pretty much any other forward on the team, Eyssimont generated his offense off of the rush. When you have top-end speed (NHL Edge stats have him in the 98 percentile with a 23.69 MPH top skating speed) that’s not a bad way to operate. On a per-60 minutes basis, he led the team in offensive zone entries that led to scoring chances while also being one of the top forwards in controlled entries.
When you see stats like that from a player playing less than 12 minutes a game at 5v5, you might wonder if he should be on the ice a little more. Honestly, as much as Eyssimont did that was good in the offensive zone, he kind of faded a bit in front of his own net. He wasn’t void of impact in his own zone, but he didn’t really help things out a lot.
At this point in his career, he’s a useful bottom-six forward that can generate offense, willingly forecheck with the best, throw his body around (his 125 hits was third on the team) and generally annoy the other team into committing penalties. He drew 31 penalties last year at 5v5 according to Natural Stat Trick, which was second the team to Brandon Hagel’s 33 despite playing 600 fewer minutes. Would it be nice if he could do that without spending 104 minutes in the box himself? Sure, but sometimes you have to answer the bell for your peskiness.
Eyssimont should be penciled in for a spot on the third line next season, and it wouldn’t be a surprise to see him brush up near the 15-goal mark, especially if he continues to get some time on the second power play unit. Oddly enough, he shot less frequently on the power play unit last season, but was more successful. NST had him at 33% shooting on six shots, which led to his two power play goals.
With the right linemates, and a little more focus in his own zone, Eyssimont could be part of a third-line that generates offense and is tough to play against. That would be beneficial for the Lightning next season as they will need as much depth scoring as they can get.
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