Cutter Gauthier's heater is real, and so is the regression

The number: 38.2%. That's Cutter Gauthier's shooting percentage over his last six games, by our count: 13 goals on 34 shots. Nobody sustains that, and Anaheim doesn't need him to. What the Ducks need is the shot volume underneath it, and that part is legitimate.

Gauthier scored three more on Sunday in a 5-2 win over Pittsburgh: one on the power play, one at even strength and the last into an empty net with 34 seconds remaining. It was his third hat trick in his last five games.

He now has 15 goals in 17 games, one behind Kirill Kaprizov and Leon Draisaitl for the league lead, per NHL data, and suddenly every Rocket Richard conversation includes him.

Here's the part a streak like this hides. Through his first 11 games, Gauthier had two goals on 38 shots, a 5.3% conversion rate. He wasn't playing badly; he was generating about three and a half shots a night, and almost nothing went in.

Then the puck turned: the same player, more attempts (about 5.7 shots a game over the six), and a finishing rate no shooter in the league maintains for long.

Put the two stretches together and you get 15 goals on 72 shots, a 20.8% season. That's still high, but it's a number a real sniper can live near for a while.

So my read is clear from the numbers: his true level sits somewhere between the cold start and the hot week, and the season line is closer to reality than either.

The power play is the other half of it. Fourteen of his 22 points have come with the man advantage, an unusually heavy dependence for a top-line winger.

Anaheim is converting 38.5% of its chances this season and 50% over its last 10 games, by our count. Both numbers will regress, and when they do, his point production will slow before his shot generation does.

That matters because of the contract. Anaheim signed him in September to a six-year, $81 million agreement, a $13.5 million average annual value, with the majority delivered as signing bonuses. Only Leo Carlsson carries a bigger cap hit on the roster.

A heater in the first season doesn't validate that deal, and a cold month won't condemn it. The price was set on what he is at 22: a winger who generates four or five shots a night and anchors an elite power play. The last six games simply illustrate that profile when the bounces cooperate.

The Ducks are the bigger winner. They've won five straight, and Gauthier scored in all five. His minutes haven't moved much, between 18 and 22 a night, so this isn't a coach riding a hot hand; it's the same deployment producing more.

What I'd watch: his shot volume, not his goal total. If he keeps generating five a night after the shooting percentage normalizes, the cap hit is fair and Anaheim has its primary goal scorer. If the shots drift back toward three, the streak was the outlier, and $13.5 million will feel expensive by spring.