Let’s do another Kodie Curran vs. Nolan Zajac comparison
Comparing Nolan Zajac to Kodie Curran is obvious. They’ve followed eerily similar career paths as offensively-gifted left-handed defensemen who began their pro careers as ECHL/AHL tweeners, later dominated the lower profile Scandinævian leagues, and then successfully jumped to prominent roles in the SHL.
Most specifically, they both signed their SHL deals coming off eye-popping age 27 seasons in Norway:
- 17/18 Kodie Curran: 38GP, 12G — 32A — 44PTS
- 19/20 Nolan Zajac: 44GP, 12G — 46A — 58PTS
(Curran went on to put up a bonkers 12–17–29 line in 14 playoff games; Zajac didn’t get a chance to match due to COVID.)
Well, it’s been half a season now for Zajac in the SHL. How does it stack up against Curran’s first SHL season? (Hockeylabbet did a good segment on this exact topic back in October, just eight games into Zajac’s season. Here I’ll give it a refresh.) On the surface, his 20 points in 25 games 1) suggest he’s more than making things work at the SHL level and 2) compare favorably to the .76 points per game Curran produced in his first season.
But we can do a lot better than points. This will be a deeper dive on Zajac’s first 25 games to see how he’s tracking against Curran, who left the SHL as a league MVP and with an NHL contract in hand.
There are plenty of caveats to this, including a small sample size, team effects, and other contextual factors. Team effects are especially worth noting, as there’s a big difference between 18/19 Rögle, a competitive team on the rise, and 20/21 Oskarshamn, a team still trying to establish itself at the SHL level and currently losers of 13 straight.
All data is in here is from shl.se, stats.swehockey.se, Better Than A Monkey, and Svengelska Hockey.
Even Strength and 5v5
Both Zajac and Curran are powerplay weapons, which we’ll get to in a minute, but of course the overwhelming majority of game action is at even strength.
Here’s how they stack up across categories like ice time, individual production, on-ice goals, on-ice percentages, and more.
On ice time, both came out of the gate as top players on their teams. Curran played just under 20 minutes per night at even strength, the most among all Rögle defensemen. Zajac is playing considerably less per game, but his 16 and a half minutes are still second-most among Oskarshamn defensemen, just barely behind Brian Cooper.
On on-ice goals, the goals are flowing at both ends of the rink with Zajac out there. He’s been on for 20 5v5 goals for (over half the team’s total) and 16 5v5 goals against. The primary driver appears to be elevated shooting percentages both for and against, in particular Oskarshamn’s 8.7% shooting percentage* with Zajac on the ice — a top 15 mark in the league. Curran’s on-ice percentages were more in line with league averages. Regardless, both had comfortable positive goal differentials.
(*This shooting percentage is based on Fenwick events (shots on goal + shots wide), not shots on goal only.)
On individual production, Zajac’s output is ahead of where Curran was, and his 1.31 PTS/60 is more than double Curran’s 0.61 mark at the same point in the season. At least part of that is tied to the aforementioned high on-ice shooting percentage. Zajac himself has four goals on 26 shots for a 15.4% shooting percentage. Those four even strength goals are more than Curran scored all year in 18/19. I’d expect that shooting percentage to come down significantly in the second half. Curran finished with a modest 3.4% shooting percentage, however he generated significantly more shots than Zajac has so far. This holds true from their GET-Ligaen days, where Curran posted 3.4 shots per game, Zajac 2.3.
And relative to teammates, both have decent showings here. They outperformed their teammates in both shot share and goal share.
Powerplay
Let’s do the same comparison, this time on their powerplay performance:
On ice time, they’re both over three and half minutes per game on the man advantage, both good for most among defensemen on their teams. This makes sense —part of the appeal of having a Curran or Zajac on your roster is to have them be difference makers on the powerplay. It would be a misuse of their skill sets not to.
On production, they grade out similarly, but with a slight edge to Zajac’s first 25 games. He’s produced points at a higher clip, and Oskarshamn’s powerplay as a whole has produced more than Curran’s unit did. For all of Oskarshamn’s troubles this season, they currently lead the league in powerplay goals. Like we saw at even strength, Curran’s individual shot rate is still higher than Zajac’s.
Shot Maps
This comes from Better Than A Monkey, which among several useful features, has individual player shot maps. Here’s where Zajac and Curran shoot from (this is all situations):
I think this reveals some interesting differences in playing style between the two. Zajac pretty much just shoots from along the blue line. Curran grew into more of a rover in the offensive zone, evidenced by hot spots popping up in the faceoff circles and in front of the net. It’s much more evident in the full season shot map, suggesting he became more aggressive and/or the coaching staff unleashed him as time wore on.
The shot maps from the first 25 games, though, are close. I’m interested to see if Zajac stays above the circles, either because that’s just who he is as a player or that’s the role he’s in, or if like Curran, he develops more of a knack for shooting in higher danger areas of the offensive zone.
While we’re here, I’ll add that both players out-performed their expected goals (also from Better Than A Monkey):
- 20/21 Nolan Zajac, First 25 Games: 6 goals on 2.7 expected goals
- 18/19 Kodie Curran, First 25 Games: 7 goals on 4.9 expected goals
- 18/19 Kodie Curran, Full Season: 12 goals on 10.9 expected goals
Game Score
The last component I’ll borrow from Better Than A Monkey is game score, a catch-all metric designed to measure overall effectiveness by assigning positive or negative values to various game events.
Here’s where Curran puts serious headroom between him and Zajac:
- 20/21 Nolan Zajac, First 25 Games: 0.67 average game score
- 18/19 Kodie Curran, First 25 Games: 0.90 average game score
- 18/19 Kodie Curran, Full Season: 0.95 average game score
By Better Than A Monkey’s scale, this puts Curran in borderline MVP range, while Zajac’s is more in the Good tier. That said, team effects are playing a big role here, as his 45.3 CF% (still good for a +1.3% rel) drags him down compared to Curran’s positive shot shares.
Game-by-Game Cards
Lastly, here is a side-by-side view of their players cards from my site:
Only have two things to add here. The first is this demonstrates that while Curran was solid throughout, he got off to a slow-ish start and didn’t truly blossom until the second half. Zajac made his offensive impact felt right away.
The second is Curran sprinkled in a handful of points on empty net goals and shootout winners. Zajac has only picked up points in common even strength and powerplay situations. It’s just a reminder that looking at raw overall points totals can be deceptive, and splitting them by situation is often helpful for apples-to-apples comparisons.
Final Observations
I didn’t go back and watch any video or highlights to write this, but from what I can remember of my own eye test, Curran carried a flashier presence with louder tools than Zajac has shown to date. Curran was more of a puck-carrier, more active in the offensive zone, and would wind up for slapshots. From what I’ve seen of Zajac, it seems like there’s more finesse — more stretch passes up the ice, more wrist shots from the point. Zajac can be equally as effective playing a different style, just pointing that out as my impression.
To sum this all up, Zajac has had an encouraging first half a season in the SHL, but the total package is a cut below Curran. That’s absolutely not meant as a knock, there are just reasons to remain skeptical and wait and see if Zajac can make the same strides in every facet of the game that Curran did with more SHL experience.
