David Desharnais is not only the Habs leader in even-strength assists, he is also the team leader in offensive-zone passing-percentage, and is tied for the team-lead in assists per completed offensive-zone pass. This not only makes Desharnais the team's best passer, it also makes him the Habs best "money-passer".
The below chart is a visual representation of each Montreal Canadiens forwards completion-rate when attempting to pass the puck in the offensive-zone.
Blake Geoffrion actually has the top offensive-zone passing-percentage among current players, but has only completed a total of 13 passes, so the amount of data is too limited to compare his results to the rest of the Canadiens forwards.The same argument applies to Ryan White's success-rate, as he himself has only completed 30 o-zone passes this season.
Comparing players with more than 100 completed passes, we find that David Desharnais' success-rate of 65% is four percentage-points above his closest teammate (Mathieu Darche). Desharnais has completed 330 o-zone passes this season, while Max Pacioretty has completed the second-highest amount with a total of 287. Desharnais also leads the team with 23 even-strength assists. This shows that 7% of Desharnais' passes result in an assist. It's understood that not all assists are the product of completed passes. That said, all players within this system are subject to the same curve. Therefore, the results are comparable within this system.
Other players with over 100 completed offensive-zone passes, and passing-percentages above 58% include; Tomas Plekanec, Travis Moen, Mathieu Darche, Erik Cole, and Lars Eller. As with Desharnais, seven percent of Erik Cole's completed passes result in an assist, while the other players' percentages are as follows; Plekanec (6%), Moen (5%), Darche (3%), Eller (3%). The percentage of assists per completed-pass for Darche and Eller relate well to their assist totals. Darche has completed 159 o-zone passes this season but only has 5 assists, while Eller has completed an impressive 261 o-zone passes, but only has 9 assists.
Scott Gomez completes 57% of his offensive-zone passes, but only 4% of those have resulted in assists. Gionta has only completed a team-low 53% of his o-zone passes, but an impressive 6% of those passes have resulted in assists. This may by an indication of Gionta's tendency to make higher-risk o-zone passes. Other notables include Rene Bourque (54% success-rate/ 2% resulting in assists), Aaron Palushaj (63%/ 1%), and Louis Leblanc ((56%/ 6%).
