Will the Los Angeles Kings get the Marian Gaborik who was unstoppable during their Stanley Cup playoff run? Or the one who scored 11 goals in 41 games during the regular season? Or perhaps one who is somewhere in the middle?
For the second time in three years, a midseason trade with the Columbus Blue Jackets helped propel the Los Angeles Kings to a Stanley Cup championship. This time it was the deadline deal that sent Marian Gaborik to Los Angeles in exchange for Matt Frattin and a draft pick.
Gaborik was an immediate fit on the Kings' top line with Anze Kopitar, recording 16 points in 19 games and then positively erupting in the playoffs, scoring a league-leading 14 goals in 26 games, the second-largest total of any player in one postseason run since 2000. Considering some of Gaborik's recent postseason performances (nine goals in his previous 36 playoff games) that seemed to find him in the doghouse of former Rangers coach John Tortorella, it was probably a welcome surprise for the Kings.
They were so impressed that they ended up giving him a seven-year, $34.1 million contract to keep him with the team.
But which Marian Gaborik are they going to get in 2014-15?
The numbers
| Games | Goals | Assists | Points |
| 41 | 11 | 19 | 30 |
What went right and what went wrong in 2013-14?
It was kind of a mixed bag for Gaborik as injuries, for the third time in his career, limited him to fewer than 50 games.
Offensively, his goal scoring, which was well below his normal career levels due in large part to a decline in the number of shots he was able to generate, remained pretty steady throughout the season with both Columbus and Los Angeles. His assist numbers saw a pretty nice jump almost immediately after the trade, likely a product of playing alongside players like Kopitar and Justin Williams. A lot of the decline in terms of getting pucks on (and in) the net could be attributed to the fact he missed half of the season due to knee and collarbone injuries.
It was the playoffs, when he was finally healthy and playing on a stacked roster, where everything started to go right for him and seemingly everything he touched found the back of the net. I referenced this chart during the Stanley Cup Final to show Gaborik's impact on the Kings' offense and how similar it was to Jeff Carter's following his deal to LA back in 2012, but it's worth a second look.
Is any of it repeatable?
Probably not, and that's true for both the good and the bad.
If he's healthy, he should be better than the 11 goals in 41 games winger we saw during the regular season (and the 12 goals in 47 games we saw the previous year), but he's also not going to come close to matching the torrid goal-scoring pace he experienced during the playoffs thanks to that 17.9 percent shooting percentage.
The only regular season in his career where he topped 16 percent was during the 2008-09 season when he scored on 19 percent of his shots while only playing in 17 games. He hasn't topped 15 percent since 2009-10. Seasons are full of peaks and valleys for players; they get on hot streaks that make them look unstoppable, and they get stuck in cold streaks where it looks like they will never score again.
When a player hits one of those hot streaks in the playoffs, it sometimes creates unreachable expectations the next season. Gaborik hit one of those hot streaks in the playoffs.
What to expect in 2014-15
Gaborik is 32 years old and will turn 33 in February, so it's probably not unfair to say that his best days are behind him. That said, he is still one of the more dangerous wingers in the NHL when he's healthy and as long as he gets to play alongside a center like Anze Kopitar, one of the best players in the world, he's going to be a serious threat to opposing defenses and goalies.
The past three years he's managed just around 3.1 shots on goal per game, and if he maintained that average and shot at 10 percent, which is the neighborhood he's been in recently, you're looking at a 25-goal season. If he converts at his career average of 12.9 percent, that's good enough for around 30 goals over 82 games.