Arshdeep Bains has been one of the Canucks’ most consistent contributors through first five games

The second was the result of some nice boardwork by Bains on Kiefer Sherwood’s first of two on the night against the St. Louis Blues.

That all looks pretty good for a player who has spent most of those five games in the bottom-six, but as is often the case with modern hockey, the more important numbers are the underlying ones.

Bains’ fancy stats through five games are, to make an overused turn of phrase, sparkling. In addition to those two goals he was directly involved in setting up, Bains has been on the ice for one more at five-on-five and only one against for a 3-1 record. His Corsi rating of 57.33% at five-on-five is the third-highest on the Canucks, and trails only Linus Karlsson and Max Sasson, who have spent their two games mostly stapled to a line with Bains. As a unit, the Castle Fun Park line (credit to The Stanchies on that one) have a collective Corsi of 80.00%!

The same goes for shot control, where Bains controls 52.78% of the shots while on the ice, ranking third on the team and trailing only Karlsson and Sasson.

Bains ranks slightly lower in some of the chance-based metrics, but only barely. He’s seventh on the team in Expected Goals with a rate of 52.56%, and fourth on the team in control of scoring chances at 57.58%, which trails just Karlsson, Sasson, and the senior Elias Pettersson. When it comes to high-danger chances specifically, Bains is at 61.54%, which is good for fifth on the team and trails just Karlsson, Sasson, Brock Boeser, and Jake DeBrusk.

If you read The Statsies every game, you know that’s a really nice set of analytic statistics. They are, there can be no doubt, something to write home about. But you probably also know that any statistic needs context in order to be understood.

Fortunately, even the context helps paint a picture of a player making the most of a big league opportunity.

There will be those who suspect Bains’ deployment has been sheltered thus far. He played just the first game of the year in the top six and has been mainly on the fourth line ever since, which makes some sense.

Of those shifts that have started with a faceoff, Bains has indeed begun some 61.90% of them in the offensive zone. But that’s a little bit of a red herring. As a fourth liner, Bains has actually begun the majority of his shifts on the fly.

When it comes to opposition, it’s probably a little early in the year to be drawing any concrete conclusions. But the charts on HockeyViz.com show that – so far, anyway – Bains has been facing a higher Quality of Competition than he’s enjoyed in his Quality of Linemates. In other words, he’s been playing most of his shifts on the fourth line, but is still playing plenty against the opposing top-six.

From Hockey-Viz.com

This was especially true in the most recent game on Friday night against the Chicago Blackhawks. Back with Karlsson and Sasson, Bains’ line’s most frequent matchup was the Hawks’ top line of Connor Bedard, Andre Burakovsky, and Colton Dach. The Abbotsford Trio held it scoreless in their roughly 3:30 of 5-on-5 time against Bedard.

We’ve focused on even-strength play thus far, but we have to include a note that Bains has also featured on the penalty kill. Not especially prominently – he currently ranks eighth in PK time amongst Vancouver forwards – but effectively all the same. Through 3:07 of shorthanded ice-time through five games, Bains has yet to surrender a power play goal against, and has only allowed four scoring chances.

That additional ability may be why Bains is the only one of the Abbotsford contingent to play in every Canucks game so far. Karlsson, Sasson, Aatu Räty, Jonathan Lekkerimäki, and Victor Mancini have all sat out. But not Bains.

Maybe there was some validity to questioning Bains’ original placement in the top six of that opening night roster. But all he’s done since that initial deployment is play objectively good and especially even-keeled hockey.

And he’s done so all over the lineup. Through five games, Bains has played at least a minute of even-strength with six different forward line combinations, and has featured anywhere from the second to the fourth line according to the depth chart.

Wherever he’s been, Bains has done a lot more than just break even. He’s very simply been among the team’s most consistent contributors through this earliest stretch of the season.