Is Adam Henrique Like Patrik Elias?

On Tuesday night, Patrik Elias recorded his 1,000^th point in the NHL, and by consequence, his 1,000^th point for the New Jersey Devils.  It was a great site to see in an otherwise not so great season.  In the postgame on MSG, I believe it was John MacLean (although I am not 100% on that, but someone definitely said it) who mentioned that someone in the locker room told him that Adam Henrique reminded him a lot like Elias, due to his high hockey acumen and ability to create positive offense for the team.  At the time I was listening to it, I thought that was great praise, and spoke a lot to what Henrique could become in the future.  I mean, if you told me right now that the Devils would get out of Henrique what they got out of Elias over all these years, I would take that in a heartbeat.

Now that I have sat on that thought for a while, I wanted to do a little comparison of the two, seeing how their numbers compare at the start of their careers.  While I cannot compare hockey intelligence, and I am sure that both of them are very smart on the ice, I can compare how each has done over their first four seasons in the NHL.  Has Henrique had a similarly productive start to his career as Elias did?  Let's find out.

Note: These numbers are somewhat outdated already, as they were taken earlier in the week.  However, the last two games do not alter the arguments made.

Henrique and Elias: the Numbers

For their basic stats, I will be using the numbers at Hockey Reference for both Adam Henrique and Patrik Elias.  These numbers cover the first four major seasons of their respective careers.  For Elias, that covers from the 1997-1998 season through the 2000-2001 season.  For Henrique, that means the 2011-2012 season through the current season.  Of course, Elias will have more games played due to the fact that there was no lockout-shortened season during the beginning of Elias' career, and also because this season is not yet complete.  Nonetheless, we can look at averages where applicable.

So from the initial glance, it is clear that Elias was more productive over the start of his career.  The major stat that shows this is point percentage.  While Henrique has started his career with a very respectable .583 points per game, Elias began his career with a much better .844 points per game.  That is a big jump.  However, there does need to be a qualifier with that: Elias' fourth season was the year the Devils won their 2^nd Stanley Cup, and it was an absolute career year for him.  That season, he produced 40 goals and 56 assists for 96 points in 82 games.  That was by far the best season of his career.  In his next best season, 2003-2004, he produced 81 points in 82 games.  So for the heck of it, let's take out the career year from Elias' numbers, and use the following year instead, when he produced 61 points in 75 games played during the 2001-2002 season.  That would make the chart now look like this:

This bring Elias' numbers down somewhat, and lessens the gap between the start of his career and the start of Henrique's, but it is still clear that there is a difference.  Elias simply was more productive over the first few years of his career then Henrique has been.  Henrique has been a solid producer, and he will do fine in New Jersey, but he did not produce like Elias did in his first seasons.

Now of course, one must also realize that Elias was playing for a Stanley Cup contender every single year.  The Devils were a dominant team at the turn of the century.  The Devils today, however, cannot boast the same accomplishments.  While Henrique did get to play for a team that went to the Stanley Cup Finals, in the other three seasons he has played for a team that has not made the playoffs.  And the team that did make it to the Finals in 2012 was not necessarily dominant in the regular season, finishing 6^th in the Eastern Conference.  So before one is quick to judge Adam harshly, remember that he has less talent around him.

The next best thing to do here would be to compare their advanced stats over their first few seasons, analyzing information such as possession, PDO, zone start percentages, etc.  The problem is that this information was not readily kept when Elias was beginning his career in the NHL, and so data is not available much before the 2007-2008 season.  The only thing I can really do is compare how they have both done over the past few seasons.  This is not a great comparison, as Elias is in the twilight of his career and Henrique is still young, but at least it is something to look at.  These stats will come from Hockey Analysis for Elias and Henrique, and will cover from the 2011-2012 season to this year.  All of these stats are for even strength only.

Over the last four seasons, these two have both been consistently good for the Devils.  Both have solidly positive possession stats, with Elias having an excellent 53.28%, while Henrique is also well over the 50% threshold himself.  Both are pretty even in their zone start percentages over the same time frame, with a slight edge going to Elias starting a little more in the offensive zone.  Despite this, however, Henrique's Goals For percentage is much higher than Elias' is.  Elias has a rather low GF% at 46.13, while Henrique is over the 50% mark at 51.05%.  While this may not mean too much, it can mean that Henrique has been a little more defensively sound that Patrik has.  Also, Henrique has had pretty neutral luck, while Elias has been unlucky over the past four seasons, with his PDO sitting at a measly 98.05%.

What Does It All Mean?

You should certainly look at the numbers, use your memory and make your own determination, but for me it means that Elias and Henrique are somewhat similar.  Henrique is a solid 2-way forward who chips in points for this club on a regular basis.  His GF% has been over 50% despite playing on a bad team in New Jersey, and he has produced over a half point per game since joining the big club.  This even includes his very poor lockout-shortened season, when he produced only 16 points in 42 games.

However, I think I need to go back to Mike's post from Wednesday, about if anyone currently on the Devils' roster or in their system will reach 1,000 points like Elias did.  In that post, Mike says that Henrique will be lucky to crack the 500 point barrier.  Honestly, it is hard to argue that point.  Yes he may be similar to Elias in how he plays, his hockey acumen, and his ability to score some points, but the rate at which Adam has scored to begin his career, as compared to Elias, is just not good.  Patrik was peaking in his career by his fourth season, scoring over a point per game.  He was a key contributor to that Stanley Cup run in 2000.  But Henrique is not showing those signs right now.  Instead, he is showing that he can score a decent amount of points and be a solid producer, but never really dominate on the score sheet.  Again, it should be noted that Adam is playing on a much worse team than Elias was, but nonetheless if he were going to produce more like Patrik did over a decade ago, he needs to make it happen almost regardless of talent around him.

Perhaps...Who Is He More Like?

How about this comparison instead?

Do those numbers perhaps look a little more similar than the numbers between Elias and Henrique?  The point percentage is certainly closer.  Well, Player A here would actually be Travis Zajac.  Those were his numbers through the first four seasons of his career, spanning from the 2006-2007 season through the 2009-2010 season.  While I am not trying to say that I think Henrique is more like Zajac than Elias, as I think he lands somewhere in the middle (better ability to score goals and produce points than Zajac, but not as prolific as Elias), it is just interesting to see this comparison as well I think.

Your Thoughts

Anyway, what are your thoughts?  How similar do you think Elias and Henrique are?  If you had to compare Henrique to any current or former Devils to showcase who he really is, who would you pick?  Please leave your comments in the section below, and thanks for reading.