Boston Bruins: Analyzing and grading the 2019-20 season of Joakim Nordstrom
By Matt Hawkins
How did Joakim Nordstrom fare in his final season with the Boston Bruins?
Although forward Joakim Nordstrom left the Boston Bruins for the Calgary Flames on a one-year, $700,000 deal in free agency, he still played for the B’s in 2019-20 and deserves to be analyzed and graded as such.
For his final season with Boston, Nordstrom continued playing in the bottom-six forward role that he played in 2018-19. However, in 2019-20, Nordstrom couldn’t remain healthy and wasn’t as effective in every aspect of the game as he was the previous season.
Nordstrom went from playing 70 games in 2018-19 to just 48 of 70 games in 2019-20. Additionally, his points per game dropped slightly from 0.17 to 0.15. He went from scoring 12 points (seven goals, five assists) in 70 games to seven points (four goals, three assists) in 48 games.
Furthermore, Nordstrom was taking penalties at a much higher rate in 2019-20 than in 2018-19. He went from just 13 penalty minutes in 70 games (0.19 penalty minutes per game) to 17 penalty minutes in 48 games (0.35 penalty minutes per game).
Defensively, Nordstrom was also worse in 2019-20. His plus/minus (+/-) went from a 0 to a -6 and his possession metrics went from not good to very bad. His Corsi-for percentage (CF%) dropped from 49.7 to 42.1 and his Fenwick-for percentage (FF%) fell from 50.6 to 42.3.
In the playoffs, Nordstrom played at around the same level. In 13 playoff games, he managed to record two assists and have a +/- of -6.
Joakim Nordstrom’s grade for his final season with the Boston Bruins.
Overall, Nordstrom wasn’t good in 2019-20. He was hurt often and this may be why he didn’t play as well as he did in 2018-19.
However, this still doesn’t mean I’m going to give him a better grade. As a bottom-six forward, if you can’t produce offensively, I expect decent defense from you, and Nordstrom couldn’t even do that.
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With that, I think Nordstrom deserves the grade of a D-. He was hurt often, couldn’t produce offensively and defensively, and couldn’t step up in the playoffs.