Shayne Gostisbehere has officially played a full NHL season.
While it (of course) isn’t in one season, the game on Saturday marked Gostisbehere’s 82nd regular season game in his career.
His numbers are pretty impressive, to say the least.
“There’s always areas of your game where you want to work on,” Gostisbehere said after Monday’s practice. “I’m just going to keep working on it every day and try to get better.”
Offensively, it may be tough to do better than what he’s shown from a full season’s worth of games.
In 82 regular season contests, the defenseman has totaled 56 points on 20 goals and 36 assists. How good is that?
There were only six blueliners last season that reached 56 points while only four had 20 or more goals. That’s a group consisting of Shea Weber (20), Oliver Ekman-Larsson (21), Mark Giordano (21) and Brent Burns (27).
With a lethal slap shot and an eye for the open man, Gostisbehere has really made an impression on the power play where he has totaled 27 points on the man-advantage. Burns (30) was the only blueliner with more points as Ekman-Larsson and Kris Letang also tallied 27.
In other words, Gostisbehere is putting up elite production while being just shy of 24-years-old.
Through 16 games in his sophomore season, Gostisbehere has continued to produce. He sits at 10 points, which is four points behind Burns, with five points on the power play, which is three points behind Kevin Shattenkirk for tops in the league by a defenseman.
He credits playing every night since he’s been called upon as a big reason behind his adjustment.
“It’s definitely a 180,” Gostisbehere said. “It’s always good to have comfortability and that confidence every game.”
