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Will Smith's shot volume has jumped over the last three games
The Sharks center averaged 1.4 shots a game early and 4.33 over his last three. Ice time rose too, but it doesn't cover all of it.
. Written by our pipeline from the free numbers on the site, with a language model doing the prose and a check that each number in it came from those numbers.
Will Smith has 20 shots through eight games for San Jose, or 2.5 a game, and the average hides a split. Over his first five games he averaged 1.4 shots. Over the last three he has averaged 4.33, a jump of 2.93 per game.
The log shows where it turned. He went three, two, none, one and one in the first five, then four against Boston, five against Nashville and four against Detroit. His ice time moved the same way: 18:36 a night over the first five, 21:56 over the last three, with 25:11 against the Red Wings, the most of any game in the log.
Minutes don't account for all of it, though. He played 20:11 against Edmonton and took one shot, then played 19:48 against Nashville and took five. The facts show he is on the ice longer lately. They don't say why, and they don't say why the shots followed.
The last three games have brought one goal and two assists, and he has six points on the season. His Grit & GF rating is 58.0, but it is provisional. It rests on eight games, and the methodology needs 15 to 20 games to be accurate. Smith and the Sharks are at Toronto tonight, with puck drop at 7:30 pm ET.