OK, let's see if, as a statistician, i can clear up this "goals/points share by players under 27" a little bit.
(1) If players under 27 are scoring 3 times the share that they did last year, that DOESN'T mean that they are scoring three times the goals/points they did last year, because the team as a whole is scoring less, so a share of the goals/points represents fewer aggregate goals/points.
(2) We'd better hope that the share of goals/points by young players is going up, because the share of the roster that is young players is certainly up. Sheary and Hathaway, for example are both gone, replaced by younger players, and in fact, on a regular basis 5 of our 12 skating forwards were not on the roster last year at this time, all under 27. In addition, Sandin was not on our roster last year until much later in the season. Fehervary was on the roster last season and has been out some this season, but that has been offset by Johansen playing many of those games. On balance, our roster is significantly more skewed toward youth than it has been in awhile.
With respect to the team as a whole, I have to admit I was concerned by a few of the early blowouts and thought the season could get ugly, but it appears that Carbery and the team have righted the ship, at least somewhat. An upcoming 5-game Western Conference trip will test that premise. But it does appear, with the season about 20% complete, that the Ovechkin era may be ending, even though he is still on the ice. We are in a different era of play now, and the game, combined with his advancing age, is in the process of passing him by. I was wondering if/when the game and Father Time would catch up with him, and it appears it may have. It now looks like the pendulum has swung back toward him NOT passing Gretzky's goal record, unless he can find one more rejuvenation of goal-scoring ability, as he has done previously in his career.
