NHL’s high scoring year has helped Trevor Moore break out

Moore is the type of player never to be afraid to drive forward to the net and use his chances up close in front of the opposing team’s goaltender. That was proven in the 2020-21 season, as most of his Fenwick shots (unblocked shot attempts) were at the front of the net area.

Moore looked to prove himself again as the 2021-22 NHL season rolled around. In the summer of ‘21, Moore had received a two-year contract extension by the LA Kings, which carried a $1.875 million AAV. It was a fair price for the depth forward at the time. But what happened next shocked us all. Trevor turned that “decent price for a depth piece” into “that contract is a steal.”

Even though today’s Trevor Moore is expected to score a point almost every game, he struggled a little bit at the start of the season. It took the Thousand Oaks native 12 games to record his first point, which was a goal, and his first assist came in his 15th game of the season. Moore had only two points in his first 23 games, and there were debates about whether he should have stayed in the lineup or not. That all changed when Trevor was placed on a line with Phillip Danault and Viktor Arvidsson.

That line had one good game, which later turned into a good stretch of games, and has stayed together throughout the regular season. The “nice” line– as it’s titled– is currently 11th in the league in expected goals percentage with 59.6%, 4th in xGF with 29.9, 3rd in the league for xGF/60 with 3.89, and has been LA’s most productive line since mid-December. Trevor Moore even improved individually, seeing how not only his basic analytics started to favor him but also his microstats.

You can visualize that he has been elite with zone entries and his zone exits. His passing has also skyrocketed, knowing that his high-danger passes and setups have put him over the top as a playmaker.

The trio of Moore, Danault, and Arvidsson has assisted both Moore and Danault to finally break out offensively, and having them both produce has been one of the key reasons why the LA Kings are as successful as they currently are.

The arrival of Phil Danault was much desired for the entire team, but it mainly helped out Trevor Moore become the high-scoring winger that he is today. Here’s how Moore has looked analytically with and without Danault.

For the most part, the analytics favor Moore when he’s on Danault’s wing. Again, that is expected, considering how dominant that entire line has been all year. While the PDO remains the same (which is genuinely surprising, seeing how random PDO can be), Moore has been nothing short of average without Danault. But the second that he started playing with Phil, his statistics shot way up, and he became a top-six forward.

Although the offensive statistics, such as his shooting percentage and intangibles, were fixed, his GA/60 got worse. It’s a little ironic how Moore playing with a skilled defensive player would make his stats worse, but that could be just one of the factors that happen during a point where a player is given more offensive zone starts as well as fewer defensive responsibilities.

Although it’s nice to see that Trevor Moore has finally broken out and has made a name for himself, what if the NHL didn’t have its highest-scoring year since 1995-96?

In the last five years (or the Adidas Era years, as I like to call it), the NHL has had its highest-scoring season. At an average of 3.13 goals, it doesn’t even come close to the low scoring we’ve seen these past five years. Thanks to the massive increase in goals and points being scored, we’ve now seen seven players hit the 100-point mark in the NHL, and eight other players hit the 90-point mark.

The large quantity of goals around the league has helped Trevor Moore finally break out and has helped him prove himself as a top six winger on the LA Kings. While the likeness of Moore’s breakout happening in a low-scoring year seems implausible, we should all be glad that the high-scoring has assisted Trevor in helping the LA Kings accelerate to a further step in building their future.