**Bio**
[Kirby Dach](https://www.tsn.ca/content/dam/tsn/en/home/images/2022/11/25/kirby-dach-1-1884049-1669413911272.jpeg) was born on January 21, 2001 in Fort Saskatchewan, Alberta. A 6’4″, 212 lbs right shot centre, Dach was drafted 3rd overall by the Chicago Blackhawks in in 2019. He started his NHL career (some would say he was rushed) the same year, playing his first on game October 20, 2019 against Washington, centering Patrick Kane and Dylan Strome, first line no less (no pressure kid!). He scored his first goal two days later against Vegas.
After disapointing seasons in Chicago, Dach was traded to Montreal on draft day for the 13th overall pick (which the habs acquired from the Islanders in exchange for Alexander Romanov) and a third-round pick. So in substance, it was Dach for Romanov.
As per [Cap Friendly](https://www.capfriendly.com/players/kirby-dach), Dach signed a 4 year, $13,450,000 contract Sep. 7, 2022. The contract has a cap hit of $3,362,500. He will be a RFA at the end of the 2025-26 season when he is 25 years old.
**Basic Stats**
*(I’m not including 2020-21 because he only played 18 games…)*
|Season|GP|TOI|G|A1|A2|Total|P/GP|FOW%|
|:-|:-|:-|:-|:-|:-|:-|:-|:-|
|21-22|70|18:03|9|9|8|26|0.37|32.8|
|22-23|58|18:30|14|15|9|38|0.66|38.3|
|2 years|128|18:15|23|24|17|64|0.50|34.5|
Dach’s offensive production increased significantly after the trade; from 0.37 PPG in 2021-22 to 0.66 in 2022-23. He still has poor face-offs numbers but there has been improvements.
**Points Distribution**
|Season|EV|PP|SH|With EN|Total|
|:-|:-|:-|:-|:-|:-|
|21-22|19|5|1|1|26|
|22-23|20|16|2| |38|
|2 years|39|21|3|1|64|
42% of Dach’s production last year came on the Power Play, producing 16 points in 58 games compared to 5 points in 70 games with Chicago. He was our most effective player on the PP with a production rate of 4.89/60. The low production with his previous team wasn’t because of low usage as Dach played 1:55 on average, which is significant. MTL increased his PP TOI to 3:25 while reducing his penalty kill responsibilities.
|Season|TOI|EV|PP|SH|
|:-|:-|:-|:-|:-|
|21-22|18:03|15:01|1:55|1:07|
|22-23|18:30|14:04|3:25|0:21|
**Rate of production at Even Strength (no special teams, no empty nets)**
|Season|EV G/60|Rank\*|%|EV A1/60|%|Rank\*|Primary Points/60|Rank\*|%|
|:-|:-|:-|:-|:-|:-|:-|:-|:-|:-|
|21-22|0.41|361/438|18%|0.47|256/438|42%|0.88|351/438|20%|
|22-23|0.58|276/437|37%|0.58|210/437|52%|1.16|254/437|42%|
*\** *rank vs all forwards with a minimum of 300 minutes played*
Dach’s impressive power play production was (a bit) hiding his ordinary production rate at even strength. But again, there was considerable improvement from 2021-22. He went from the 20% percentile in primary point production per 60 minutes of play to the 42% percentile.
**Advanced Stats – On Ice**
More info on advanced stats terms and concepts: [Beyond the Box Score – An Intro to Hockey Analytics](https://www.nhl.com/kraken/news/beyond-box-score-intro-to-hockey-analytics/c-335471754)
Note: the following results are not adjusted for deployment, quality of competition, quality of teammates, etc.
|On-Ice|CF%|Team Rank|xGF%|Team Rank|xGF/60|Team Rank|xGA/60|Team Rank|
|:-|:-|:-|:-|:-|:-|:-|:-|:-|
|2021-22|44.72|9/14|45.49|9/14|2.12|6/14|2.53|13/14|
|2022-23|48.07|3/17|48.3|2/17|2.68|2/17|2.86|5/17|
Dach might not have had an impressive point production rate, but his ‘underlying’ numbers were excellent with the habs and such a contrast to Chicago. From being one of the worst player in all these metrics, he was one of the best in Montreal.
Dach’s tour de force is how he made Suzuki and Caufield better. With Dach, the first line’s expected goal for share (xGF%) was 50.5, without Dach, it fell to 30.48. I remember Dach saying he enjoyed playing centre, but if he can’t improve his face-off percentage and if the team can’t find another compatible winger for Suzuki-Caufield, Dach might have to continue playing wing…
[Source: Natural Stat Trick](https://preview.redd.it/efi8kr43ap4b1.png?width=809&format=png&auto=webp&v=enabled&s=eacc3f6192ffe0fe93aeaa12af1edefc88ed33ac)
*(please note the 43.3% of Dach without Suzuki and Cole, I’ll get back to it)*
**Advanced Stats – Goals Above Replacement (GAR), RAPM and Player Card**
When stats take into consideration point production, on-ice stats, teammates, opposition and deployment.
​
https://preview.redd.it/v4lru9e9bp4b1.png?width=1275&format=png&auto=webp&v=enabled&s=20c1e68497a5161ef58ec11306b12b1160e3d28d
Dach was barely over the replacement line in his two last season with Chicago. The trade did him wonders.
[z-score of 0 = league average](https://preview.redd.it/1cj3a6hzbp4b1.png?width=1062&format=png&auto=webp&v=enabled&s=288acb1a8fe0cec204c586b37412ab9248c9c3d8)
Not suprisingly, Dach’s play driving in Chicago wasn’t great. His offense and defense were below league average.
[z-score of 0 = league average](https://preview.redd.it/ooctbnsmbp4b1.png?width=1062&format=png&auto=webp&v=enabled&s=d720af7d872b2565a812db470483b0a0ec101435)
Dach turned into quite the play driver in Montreal :). I must admit, after the trade happened and having access to these graphs, I was quite puzzled. According to these graphs, it really looked like Dach was going to bust territory and I was quite weary of the contract habs management awarded him. Goes to show that stats are complementary information, but not the answer to everything. A player could be amazing, but other factors could impact performance. Stats are a tool, among all others to evaluate a player’s performance. A bad or good ‘player card’ is not proving anything.
https://preview.redd.it/4yd9rd5rdp4b1.png?width=1000&format=png&auto=webp&v=enabled&s=fbef59d82e4a14e727b4731690671472cd7afee7
Dach’s player card, including his last two years in Chicago. Dach is one of the few habs players with positive ‘goals above replacement’ defensive results. There doesn’t seem to be any weakness to his game other than his offensive production at even strength (his underlying numbers are great so I’m not worried, production will come) and taking dumb penalties.
**Context**
In 2021-22 with Chicago, Dach faced the toughest competition along with Hagel. Maybe a factor as to why he had poor results; that’s a lot of responsibilities for a player so young.
https://preview.redd.it/97399n8cfp4b1.png?width=902&format=png&auto=webp&v=enabled&s=e3146702be38dd6ab061f08443b474b5f7089bea
With the habs, competition was a bit easier with Suzuki and Caufield taking much of the hard match-ups. That could have been an easy explanation for Dach’s improvement but Dach actually played his best hockey alongside Suzuki and Caufield, facing tough match-ups. So it’s more complex than that.
https://preview.redd.it/pyizej8cfp4b1.png?width=914&format=png&auto=webp&v=enabled&s=4b39ef804cd3b16ee01660243f0d868f3d537c6b
**Conclusion**
Dach saw an amazing improvement since being traded to Montreal. All his stats improved, especially his one-ice stats. He turned out to be a great linemate to Suzuki and Caufield who struggled without him. However, it’s interesting to note that Dach also saw his on-ice results getting worse without the duo (43.3 xGF% vs 50.50 xGF%). Dach was playing wing with Suzuki and Caufield. He was playing centre away from them. He was playing centre in Chicago…
There are a lot of factors explaining Dach’s drastic improvement in Montreal. Could one of them include Dach being more suited on wing than at centre…?
by MinieC
9 Comments
I know it’s not original but here’s my favorite Kirby Dach moment, and my favorite game of the season: [https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Jmcid38RLtQ](https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Jmcid38RLtQ)
Great stuff. Love to see young player getting their groove on
First of all, thanks for such an amazing deep dive.
You could see the chemistry when he played with Suzuki and Caufield, and they could be together for years. However the Canadiens need a 2C as well, and Dach might be slotted in there.
While they admittedly are well leveraged when it comes to the Jets and PLD, bringing him in now would start to show a really solid top 6 core, and maybe PLD could find some chemistry with Slafkovsky or Anderson, allowing this year’s pick to play bottom 6 minutes against easier competition.
The stats of Dach-Caufield without Suzuki are intriguing to me, although I imagine it’s a relatively small sample size (?)
I like Suzuki-Caufield together but I do feel like Suzuki tends to primarily look for Cole when they’re on the ice together, to a fault. I like my Nick Suzuki when he’s open for business.
Putting Dach with Caufield, and perhaps another shooter, could really optimize his puck control and distribution skills.
Dach passes the eye test. The man impacts the play, even when the team doesn’t convert.
He has all the tools, big, strong, goes to the dirty areas, compétitive edge, incredibly slick, good IQ, nose for the net… everything.
Players this big and skilled are unicorns, I’ve no idea why Chicago gave up on him. It makes no sense.
He’s what a real 3OA C should look like. *Cough cough*
The thing I love about this breakdown is that you’ve shown the points distribution between primary and 2ndary assists which is often lost in some analyses
his numbers aren’t wow-factor yet but I think he has really really good potential to keep evolving and I don’t think we’ve seen even close to his actual ability just yet. He managed to have a rebound even on an injured bottomfeeder Habs roster. As others have said as chemistry builds it will get better and better.
I think Marty will turn Dach into a bloodthirsty merciless ~~killing~~ scoring machine
I think he will turn into a game breaker. He has the talent and I’m glad Chicago gave up early on him.