The complicated case of Brendan Perlini

The Blackhawks acquired Brendan Perlini and Dylan Strome in a trade with the Coyotes in November, but Perlini didn’t make the impact Strome did. In fact, most seemed to write off Perlini until a March resurgence saw him emerge as a top-six goal scorer.

There’s no clear cut way of deciding whether Perlini helped or hindered the Blackhawks more this season. He’s the most complicated case on the roster, so below are the two arguments.

Perlini was good

The case Perlini was good is made most conclusively by what he did to the line he played most commonly with, being added to the duo of Strome and Alex DeBrincat.

Line combo metrics

The line was much, much better with Perlini than without him, to the extent of three full Corsi percentage points and five in shot share. That’s not somebody that’s easily replaceable, as has been made clear by the lack of control over the puck DeBrincat and Strome had without him.

Perlini also became much better for the Blackhawks in March, after missing time since Feb. 16, starting in what was his 30th game for Chicago.

A tale of two seasons

Perlini became someone the Blackhawks could rely on to produce offensively and someone who was much better at driving play. Once he was given an expanded role and a bigger opportunity to contribute when put with Strome and DeBrincat, Perlini scored at a much better rate, which the Blackhawks need more of.

So he was someone who made one of the most valuable lines the Blackhawks have better and who, once he was put in a more suitable role, someone who contributed. The Blackhawks need more goal scorers, and Perlini should be one. In the two seasons Perlini played before coming to Chicago, he produced 14 goals in 57 games and 17 in 74.

Perlini produced the ninth-most primary points per 60 on the Blackhawks’ roster with 1.11. His penalty differential was also perfectly balanced, which means he took as many penalties as he drew.

Perlini was bad

Let’s start here:

For reference, this is Perlini’s regularized adjusted plus minus, or what he contributed individually, outside of accountable outside factors. -1 means one standard deviation below league average.

Clearly, Perlini cannot play on the power play, although he was never tasked with doing so in Chicago, and he was a negative in four of the five categories, including both expected goals against and Corsi allowed. Some of that is from his time in Arizona, and a lot of it is those 29 games Perlini was still settling in, but negatives are negatives.

Then, this is the impact Perlini made on the Blackhawks’ offense this season:

This is the shot map, where the Blackhawks’ offense generated chances. With Perlini, the Blackhawks weren’t able to get to the high-danger area. That led to being eight points worse than the league average offense. Without Perlini, they were able to get to the important areas far more often and were four points better than average.

Again, some of this is limited sample size – the Blackhawks had about eight times as much time without Perlini as when he was on the ice.

Perlini was a negative goals against replacement player (-6.8, 27th on the roster) and negative wins above replacement player (-1.2, also 27th), according to Evolving Hockey.

Even his biggest positive, his impact on DeBrincat and Strome, doesn’t mean much when they still weren’t positive in high-danger chances or expected goal share. They couldn’t break into the offensive zone and keep the puck there, and they allowed a good number of chances against as well. While teams couldn’t score on those chances, they were still present.

Much ado about Perlini

It’s not clear cut whether Perlini’s impact on the Blackhawks was positive or negative. A lot of the lingering bad stuff was left over from Arizona and from the 29 games he played in a smaller role. But Perlini didn’t entirely fix his problems in the 17 games he was a better player for the Blackhawks.

But those 17 games can’t be taken into account for many of his stats, and with his improvement in the stats that can be measured, those may have increased as well. There’s reason to have cautious optimism when it comes to the British forward, but the emphasis is on the word cautious.

Still, Perlini proved since March that he can be a useful middle-six forward who can contribute goals and primary points. He also proved that he can make the Strome-DeBrincat pairing more effective in terms of puck possession and goal scoring.

Currently, Perlini is a restricted free agent who had a cap hit of $863,333 in 2018-19. There’s a case to be made that he’s worth at least another look, perhaps on a one-year “prove your worth” contract. If he proves to be the guy who played 29 games before March, well, the Blackhawks can drop him to the fourth line or waive him and move on to another player within the organization. In the long run, the Blackhawks have Philipp Kurashev and other forward prospects who, while not first-line capable, could fill in a hole with DeBrincat and Strome.

But if Perlini proves to be the goal-scoring forward who played his last 17 games, Chicago can sign him to a longer-term deal along with his linemates in 2020. It may just be worth finding out.

Stats courtesy of Hockey Reference, Natural Stat Trick, Corsica and Evolving Hockey.

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