A player’s actual ability may not change much year over year, but their statistics and performance can fluctuate tremendously from one season to the next. It’s a testament to how many factors influence scoring — there’s ice time and overall opportunity, puck luck, linemate quality, team quality, systems and so much more.

Taking a deeper look at these contextual factors can give us a warning about who may not be able to repeat the heights they reached last season. That’s what we’re in search of today — 10 players at risk of regressing in 2024-25. This could be a star unlikely to repeat a career-best season, a player whose production could taper off because of a smaller role with fewer prime offensive opportunities or a breakout performer who will likely fall back to Earth.

It’s vital to stress that a player isn’t “bad” or declining in their actual abilities if they land on this list. Most of the players on this list are genuinely excellent — it’s just that they’re unlikely to replicate the offensive numbers they managed in the 2023-24 campaign.

Here are 10 players at risk of producing less than they did last season.

Everything Reinhart touches has turned into gold over the last 12 months. He tallied a whopping 57 goals, scored the Stanley Cup-winning goal in Game 7, finished fourth in Selke Trophy voting and signed the most lucrative contract of his career.

Last season was the first time Reinhart played on Aleksander Barkov’s line full-time, and riding shotgun with an elite center helps partially explain his massive uptick in scoring. Reinhart is a remarkable player and will continue piling up big goal and point totals on Barkov’s wing, but it’s unrealistic to expect him to score at a near 60-goal pace again.

Reinhart scored on 24.5 percent of his shots in 2023-24, which was by far the highest shooting percentage of all NHL skaters who played at least 50 games. It’s practically impossible to sustain a nearly 25 percent shooting efficiency long-term. For reference, Leon Draisaitl is the NHL’s most efficient finisher (among forwards with at least 2,500 minutes in that sample), sustaining a 19.9 percent shooting clip over the last three seasons.

Before last season, Reinhart’s career high was 33 goals, so 57 goals is clearly a major outlier. It’s true Reinhart generated shots and scoring chances at the best rate of his career last season — he absolutely played the best hockey of his life — but some good fortune also aided him. For context, if he had converted last season’s shots at his 15.6 percent career average, he would have scored 36 goals instead of 57.

Expect Reinhart to be closer to the 40-goal range this year rather than contending for the Rocket Richard.

When a player has a career-best season at 34, they’re usually at risk of regressing the following year. In Nyquist’s case, there are multiple reasons to believe his production will slow down in 2024-25.

Nyquist scored 75 points in 81 games, which marked the first time in his career he’s scored more than 60 points in a single season. That type of outlier production at an older age is an immediate red flag regardless of how well he performed on the club’s top line.

However, the biggest risk to Nyquist’s numbers is that he’s likely in line for a smaller role this season. Nyquist was a staple on the Predators’ first power-play unit and scored 24 points there. But with Steven Stamkos and Jonathan Marchessault arriving, he’ll almost certainly be getting bumped down to the second unit. Dropping from PP1 to PP2 can be a huge blow to a player’s point totals. He could also see his minutes reduced at even strength because of the players mentioned above, plus Luke Evangelista’s expected growth as a sophomore.

Tack on the risk of natural age-related decline for Nyquist, who’s now 35, and there’s a very high chance he’ll produce significantly less this season.

Carcone’s underdog story is worth celebrating.

The 5-foot-9 left winger went undrafted and toiled away in the AHL for five seasons before he made his NHL debut for Arizona in 2021-22 as a 25-year-old. He was sent back to the AHL the following season and tore it up with a league-leading 85 points in 65 games. That dominant performance earned him a life-changing two-year, one-way contract extension last offseason. Carcone responded by breaking out not only as a full-time NHL player but as a meaningful scorer, registering 21 goals in 74 games for the Coyotes last season.

However, there are two main reasons Carcone is likely to take a step back in 2024-25. Firstly, the path for him to earn top-nine minutes in Utah looks daunting. He clearly hasn’t earned André Tourigny’s full trust as he averaged just 11:16 per game last year, plus the club looks deeper at wing now that Dylan Guenther will stick around for a full season and because of Josh Doan’s late-year emergence.

Secondly, Carcone shot 18.9 percent last season. He’s a talented sniper but the odds of him sustaining that type of finishing efficiency are slim.

Between the uphill battle to a consistent top-nine role and looming shooting percentage regression, Carcone will have a hard time hitting the 20-goal mark again.

Granlund was in the middle of a precipitous decline before arriving in San Jose.

He only notched 41 points in 79 games in 2022-23, his two-way play-driving metrics fell off a cliff and he had a completely lackluster cameo as the Penguins’ third-line center. He was on an overpriced contract the Penguins sent to San Jose as part of the Erik Karlsson trade.

Moving to the Bay Area resurrected Granlund’s offensive numbers last season as he piled up 60 points in 69 games. But he’s going to have a tough time replicating that.

For starters, Granlund’s production was mostly driven by a huge increase in ice time. The Sharks were miserable last year, so Granlund became the de facto No. 1 center and averaged a career-high 20:58 per game. Macklin Celebrini will immediately trump Granlund as the Sharks’ 1C, which will mean fewer minutes for the veteran Finnish forward. Between Celebrini, Tyler Toffoli and Will Smith, San Jose has new robust offensive weapons. Granlund will still play an important role but the offense won’t have to run through him like it did last season, which will likely have a detrimental impact on his individual offensive numbers.

He’s also a candidate to get traded at the deadline because of his pending unrestricted free-agent status. If Granlund moves to a contender, he’ll have even fewer offensive opportunities playing on a deeper team which would also hinder his production.

Granlund only reached the 60-point mark once in his last five seasons before 2023-24. Last year’s production looks like an outlier and something that will be difficult to repeat during his age-32 season.

Cale Makar, Roman Josi, Erik Karlsson and prime Brent Burns are the only defensemen who’ve posted multiple 20-goal seasons over the last decade.

Sure, there are other defenders who’ve hit the 20-goal mark once, but to do it twice in relatively quick succession? Only this generation’s best offensive superstars from the back end have been able to accomplish that. With all due respect to Weegar — who’s an excellent all-around top-four player — he’s not an elite offensive contributor and will be exceptionally hard-pressed to repeat his 20-goal campaign from 2023-24.

Weegar had previously never hit the double-digit mark for goals in a single season, let alone 15 or 20. He scored 18 goals across 215 games if you combined his last three seasons before 2023-24. Weegar was handed roughly double the power-play minutes compared to 2022-23 — an increase in usage that should continue this season — but only three of his 20 goals came on the man advantage. In other words, the uptick in his power-play time can’t really explain this scoring outburst.

Weegar rode an inflated 9.6 percent shooting clip last season. That will almost certainly come back down to Earth because Makar is the only defender in the league (minimum 150 games) who’s sustained a nine percent or higher shooting clip over the last three years. If Weegar had converted last season’s shots at his 5.7 percent career average, he would have scored 11-12 goals instead of 20.

There’s a ton to like about Weegar as a two-way top-pair defender. He should comfortably hit 40-50 points, but I’d be surprised if he gets anywhere close to 20 goals again.

Miller has bounced back as an elite player since Rick Tocchet’s hiring as Canucks coach. The fiery 31-year-old forward has gone from being oft-criticized defensively in the Bruce Boudreau era — to the point where his ability to play center was questioned — to winning matchup minutes against other stars defensively. On top of that, he erupted for a career-high 37 goals and 103 points last season.

Miller’s glow-up under Tocchet is legitimate — he should continue performing like a bona fide first-line center — but his offensive numbers are likely to dip.

The first red flag is Miller’s on-ice shooting percentage. On-ice shooting percentage looks at how often a team turns its shots into goals when a certain player is on the ice, regardless of whether that player is the one taking the shots or not. Research has proven high on-ice shooting percentages in the NHL are rarely repeated the following year.

This is noteworthy because Miller had the second-highest on-ice shooting percentage out of every NHL skater who played at least 700 five-on-five minutes last season. This means that yes, Miller played fantastic last year, but his entire line benefitted from some puck luck too. Miller’s most common linemate, Brock Boeser, went from scoring 18 goals in 2022-23 to a career-high 40 goals last season. Boeser had previously never scored 30 goals and rode a red-hot shooting percentage — he’s likely to score fewer goals this season. That would negatively affect Miller’s point totals because he assisted on 25 of Boeser’s 40 goals last season.

Individually, Miller also shot at an inflated 19.1 percent clip. Miller’s an above-average shooter but he’s very consistently been a 14-16 percent shooter during his time in Vancouver, so he’s likely to score fewer goals himself too.

I’d expect Miller to produce in the 80-90 point range rather than crossing the 100-point mark this season.

Oilers winger Zach Hyman surpassed the 50-goal mark last season. (Cooper Neill / Getty Images)

Who thought Hyman would explode for 54 goals at 31 last season? The Oilers’ gritty top-line winger has bucked aging curves by continuously improving in his late 20s and early 30s when most peers are declining. His ascension is a wonderful story, but moving forward he’ll probably be closer to the 40-goal range.

History is working against Hyman. Eighteen NHL players have crossed the 50-goal mark in the 20 seasons between 2002-03 and 2022-23. Only three of those 18 players — Alex Ovechkin, Leon Draisaitl and Dany Heatley — eclipsed 50 goals again the following season.

Hyman generated shots and high-danger chances at the best rate of his career, so this wasn’t a flukey offensive outburst. But on top of playing the best hockey of his career, he did benefit from an inflated 18.6 percent shooting clip. Many would argue Hyman should sustain an elite finishing efficiency because he’s playing with Connor McDavid and often scoring backdoor tap-ins. That’s a fair point, but in his first two seasons in Edmonton where he was also playing with McDavid, Hyman never topped 13 percent.

Hyman’s 54-goal season reminds me a bit of Chris Kreider’s 52-goal campaign in 2021-22. Both are elite net-front finishers who thrived playing alongside star players and a lethal first-unit power play. Neither was previously viewed as an elite goal scorer. Kreider’s been closer to the 35-40 goal range over the last two seasons since then. I expect Hyman to have a bit of a higher ceiling than Kreider because of the McDavid factor, but I’d be surprised if he finishes in the top three in the Rocket Richard race again.

The Blackhawks’ pool of top-six wingers will be more robust this season. Teuvo Teräväinen and Tyler Bertuzzi represent major upgrades. After missing all but 10 games last season because of injury, Taylor Hall is a new piece for all intents and purposes, too.

With all that extra forward competition, Kurashev likely won’t get the prime offensive deployment that drove his production in 2023-24. Kurashev spent nearly 800 five-on-five minutes with Connor Bedard last season. He was also a fixture on the Blackhawks’ top power-play unit. This year, he’ll probably be bumped off Bedard’s line and demoted to the second power-play unit.

Kurashev is still a handy player for the Blackhawks — he’s shifted to center on a line with Teräväinen and Lukas Reichel — but odds are that we’ll see a drop off from the 54 points he notched last season.

Coleman has built his stellar reputation on relentless speed and forechecking, strong defensive chops and an ability to score 15-20 goals per year. He was the perfect two-way checking line winger during Tampa Bay’s back-to-back Stanley Cup wins. But for all the respect the hockey world has for Coleman, he’s never been known for high-end production.

That changed last season. Coleman notched 30 goals and 54 points, finishing one goal back of Yegor Sharangovich for the Flames’ scoring lead.

The catch is that his individual shot and scoring chance creation were nearly identical compared to the season prior. Coleman’s scoring uptick was almost entirely driven by a spike in his finishing efficiency — he scored on 15.4 percent of his shots compared to his 10.4 percent career rate. For context, if he had converted last season’s shots at his career average, he would have scored 20 goals instead of 30. The odds are stacked against the veteran two-way winger to sustain this elevated shooting percentage and goal-scoring output.

In Anaheim, Henrique was gift-wrapped top-six minutes and a ton of power-play time. He produced 18 goals and 42 points in 60 games with the Ducks — a 24-goal, 57-point pace — before getting dealt to the Oilers at the trade deadline.

Henrique took a discount to re-sign in Edmonton this summer; he must be thrilled to play for a Cup contender. It was a terrific signing from the Oilers’ perspective too. However, that leap in team quality will come at the price of a less prominent offensive role and smaller goal/point totals.

The 34-year-old forward is currently projected to center the Oilers’ third line and only averaged 34 seconds per game with them on the power play last season. Henrique will be a key secondary piece for the club, but third-line centers with limited man-advantage time aren’t going to produce big offensive numbers. He scored 16 points (10 goals and six assists) in 39 games with the Oilers combined between the regular season and playoffs. He dealt with an injury during that time, so that’s useful context, but he’s unlikely to get the top-six minutes and PP1 time necessary to replicate the 24 goals and 51 points he scored in the regular season last year.

(Photos of Sam Reinhart and J.T. Miller: Sam Navarro and Bob Frid / USA Today)