(dCorsi numbers from @Mimicohero)
Positives
Lewis was a useful penalty killer this year. His 136 5v4 minutes were third among Kings forwards. In those minutes he allowed low rates of shots against relative to his team. He made a similar impact in 2011-12 and 2012-13; this is a real strength of his game, something he’s done well at year after year. His speed and energy seem particularly useful in disrupting opposing entries.
Lewis had a +18 penalty differential this year, the best of any King. He’s unlikely to get close to that again next year, but he has consistently been positive in this area over his career. That’s very neat for a bottom six forward, and contrasts favorably with teammates like Kyle Clifford (-15 last year).
Negatives
Lewis was really, really bad at offense last year. The median NHL fourth liner puts up 1.04 pts/60 at 5v5. 371 NHL forwards played at least 400 5v5 minutes last year; Trevor Lewis’ .61 pts/60 ranked 362nd among these. That’s terrible. He’s at .86 pts/60 for his career, an incredibly low rate that’s in the same territory as goons like Jody Shelley (.77), Patrick Kaleta (.97), and Todd Fedoruk (.88).
His big problem is an abysmal on-ice shooting percentage. Over the last 4 years, here are the 10 lowest forwards by 5v5 on-ice sh% (league average is a little under 8 percent):
Yikes. That is not good company. If you set the minimum TOI to 2000 minutes instead of 1000, Trevor Lewis is dead last in the NHL over the last four years. One recurring theme of hockey analytics is that on-ice percentages are subject to enormous random variation over small samples, but Trevor Lewis is past that point. While there is probably still some bad luck involved, and his percentages will likely regress to the mean a bit, he is clearly way below average in this respect.
In addition to not scoring at all, Lewis also struggled greatly at puck possession. It’s a bit harder to post a good Corsi relative on a team like the Kings but a -5.0% is very poor. That’s the worst figure of any Kings forward. This isn’t a deployment thing; his zone starts and quality of competition were average relative to the team. Lewis does suffer from spending very little time with top forwards, which is why dCorsi likes him a little bit more than Corsi relative, although neither likes him very much. He did have some success in 143 minutes with Mike Richards this year (56.2% Corsi) but struggled mightily in 201 minutes with Stoll (49.6% Corsi). Overall, most Kings forwards tended to do better without him than with him.
Lewis’ zone entries numbers are a mixed bag. His 23.23 entries/60 is good (3rd among Kings forwards, showing an involved player) but his 42.48% carry-in rate is very low, although it is better than fellow fourth liners Clifford (33.85%) and Nolan (40.28%). Lewis is probably not a great passer or receiver of passes, but he has the speed to be decent at entries; perhaps he should attempt to carry the puck in more.
Highlight
This fantastic video courtesy of @thxbud. Also, this gif of Trevor Lewis reacting to the end of his goalless streak is the best thing in the history of ever.
Roman Emperor Comparable: Macrinus
Macrinus (ruled 217-218) was a lawyer and administrator who worked for, and eventually murdered, the emperor Caracalla. Macrinus didn’t have much of a choice about this; Caracalla was a brutal monster and probably intended to execute Macrinus soon, so Macrinus got to him first and spared the world of a tyrant. Claiming the throne on Caracalla’s death, Macrinus was left to clean up his predecessor’s mess. The task proved too much.
Caracalla had provoked wars in Parthia and along the Danube, which were not at all resolved at his death. Macrinus got out of these entanglements by bribing Rome’s enemies to go away. That was just the start of the problems; Caracalla had raised soldier pay to ludicrous heights, bankrupting the empire in the process (since Caracalla had justly earned the hatred of the entire civilian population, he was forced to do this in order to secure his own rule). Macrinus tried to scale back soldier pay so the finances would work, but the optics of paying the soldiers less while handing out cash to foreigners proved unworkable. The legions mutinied and deposed Macrinus after about a year.
Macrinus’ decisions were basically well-intentioned, so you feel a bit sorry that everything blew up in his face. Ultimately, his political instincts were just not good enough. I have similar thoughts about Trevor Lewis; I like the guy, he probably tries hard, I’d love to see him succeed, but this isn’t heading in a good direction.
Going Forward
Lewis will turn 28 in the middle of next season. He is past the point of his career when we can reasonably expect a lot of growth. He is signed for two more years at $1.525 million, so he’ll be a regular on the bottom six of some good Kings teams. But I don’t think he will be much of the reason those teams are good.
Grade
Lewis’ penalty killing and penalty drawing are both nice, but his results at even strength this season were just terrible. In both possession and scoring, he basically posted the 5v5 on-ice results of a goon. I can’t give that anything better than a D.
Grade Trevor Lewis’ Season.
| A | 7 |
| B | 20 |
| C | 67 |
| D | 30 |
| F | 7 |