Quoting: Jded
I feel like the more helpful stat would be how Barzal’s line fared in the 500+ minutes without him with an alternative in his place. Because imo, Barzal’s line controlling 50.7% of chances actually seems low, especially since Barzal historically starts a pretty disproportionate number of his shifts in the offensive zone. It’s great they converted on that, but that’s unlikely to stick over a large enough sample if they’re only generating half the chances.
The fact that he requires an elite center to be decent, and still only generates 50% of the chances when that’s the case feels concerning, no?
This is per NaturalStatTrick, 5v5, 2021-22 through today:
Wahlstrom CF% with Barzal: 50.69% (539:49 TOI)
Wahlstrom CF% without Barzal: 44.98% (807:58 TOI)
Barzal CF% without Wahlstrom: 49.82% (1331:27 TOI)
It's hard to judge the few high-end Islanders forwards on possession numbers, because so much of Trotz (and then Lambert's) gameplan was bend-but-don't-break, forcing the other team into taking low-percentage shots and aiming for higher-danger chances on offense. The 2021-22 Isles were -302 in shot differential, last year's team made the playoffs at -20, and this year's team is hanging around the margins of the race at -212 through 60 GP. Anything 48% and up has usually been the "better" side of Isles forwards over the past few years.
I wish Wahlstrom had a little more run with Brock Nelson in that time - Nelson is a very good 2C and Wahlstrom generally had good possession numbers with him, but we're talking about 98:33 together over 3 seasons - not enough to really glean much useful data from. But they generally were deployed offensively and that date looked favorably on that pair in their time together - I would hope that Wahlstrom getting time with another offensive line would bode well for whatever team finally uses him correctly.