Should we sign Phil Kessel? Give me a good reason to.....
by hockeysully on Jul 1, 2009 10:26 AM EDT
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There have been many good points about Kessel, he's a good player and with the right people around him, he'll continue to develop. But looking forward at our cap versus his production, should we?
Fluto Shinzawa of the Boston Globe analyzed Kessel's goals over the past several seasons. Overall theme was that :
1. he scored more goals per game in the 1st half of the season
2. scored majority of those goals against non-playoff teams
3. we all remember his performance in last year's playoffs, enough said.
However, another thing to consider is that Tukka Rask, Blake Wheeler, Milan Lucic all come up for RFA in 2010-2011, a year that many NHL people are saying the cap will actually decrease.
The regular season was promising, but we see what happened in the playoffs, so there are clearly holes to fill. It is easy to say sign Kessel at $4.25 per, or trade for a puck carrying defenseman, which might cost you around Kessel money too.
But I think it might be best for Chiarelli to sit back, wait out the market, and see where guys are getting signed. There could be some good guys out there at a discount, but that might patch a whole for a year or two. Would it be better to wait it out a year and make sure we sign the guys we need to - Rask/Lucic, maybe Wheeler next year?
I'm torn with the Kessel thing (much like his rotator cuff) - so give me some arguments that support keeping him or letting him go and grabbing some cap space and draft picks.
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So Many Factors, So Little time
Sulls – I spoke about this a bit yesterday in one of my posts, but here’s how I’d evaluate Kessel:
1. The stat book on him as outlined above, it’s out of context to me. What are the league averages and elit scorer averages on this numbers? where does he fall against similar players?
2. Regardless of the league avgs on these stats, the trends outlined are consistent with a younger scorer in the league. See my post on “Big game and Tail off stats” yesterday if you like.
3. Playoff performance from ’09 heavily out ways ’08 in my book. he was an entirely different player in this years 2nd season, and did it was a bad shoulder.
All that said, reasons to keep or not keep Kessel:
Keep:
- consistent & measurable improvement year over year each of his 3 seasons.
- top 15 goal scorer in 3rd year in the league, only 21
- still posesses a high upside.
- you can’t teach or coach speed.
- 35 goals accounts for 12.5% of team goals last year. Thats a lot of performance to replace, even with the upsides of Looch, Wheeler, Krecji, et. all.
- If you can get him for $4.25 or less, there will not be another way to spend that level of $$ and get equal or greater value this off-season.
Let him go:
- Salary cap limitations
- (related) still too much of a 1 way player to invest in
- same $4.25m could be used to get a stronger all around player for nexy year. (short term goal)
Bottom line to me is the $4.25m or less level is key, if you can sign him for less then that for 3-5 years, he would fit withint a salary that allows the B’s to build a solid and sustainable foundation.
All that said, as sexy as goal scorers are – they don’t necessarily win championships, you can’t over pay for 1 dimension.
Just read the “Big Game and Tail Off Stats” – def make very valid point as far as his potential production over the next several years which would make $4.25m per a pretty good deal compared to some of the other guys out there. It will be interesting to see what the Hossa’s & Cammalier’s get……
I’d also have to agree on your point of this year’s playoffs outweighing ’08, seems like it happened to Wheeler this year.
What do you make of Krejci signing for $3.75m per? I’m a big Krejci fan, so I might be biased, but I think he is going be really good. He plays both ways and cycles really well down low with some of our bigger forwards. He made Bitz look like an all star in the playoff games he and Bitz skated together in. Seems like there is a lot more upside to Krejci and what he offers @3.75m/yr versus a goal scorer at $4.25m/yr. I wonder if that Krejci number shocked the Kessel camp….but they may hope that GMs will stick with their trend of overpaying for goal scorers…like you said…..it is sexy.
I’d have to see where the other 10 goal scorers that finished ahead of him as far as where there scoring came – you know of any good hockey websites that can break that down?
- Goals before/after All Star Game
- Goals against playoff teams
- Etc
Not sure of a great stat site for that info, I looked a bit yesterday but didn’t find it. Took me a long while to find one for this AM’s top goal scorer salaries. It’s actually a very good site for player costs, etc: nhlnumbers.com
From what I can tell it’s fairly accurate also.
Krecji – also a big fan here, so also biased on that. Surprised how quickly he signed and for what he signed at. With him growing and Bergy staying healthy hopefully, B’s are locked at C. And that’s not counting Sobotka, who might surprise as well
Of course if Savvy wants to sign for $3.5m or so, that can work too!
kessel
simple reason, is that he is still very young and still maturing. he could of had a 50 goal season easily last year, once he got mono that was it. Imagine kessel 4-5 years from now playing for the bruins with the speed he has and gifted goal scorer he is, could easily have 50 goals each year.
Sobotka is under contract for the next year for $625,000 and you can send him back and forth between Providence and Boston. It makes no since to get rid of him.
by Stanley Cup of Chowder on Jul 1, 2009 4:12 PM EDT up reply actions
Typical Bruins
Leave it to the typical Bruins mantra of running goal scorers out of town (Juneau, Kvartalnov, Ruziska) while overstockpiling defensemen year in & year out. There aren’t alot of 35 goal scorers in the league, when you get one of them especially at a young age you gotta find a way to keep em. Not to mention how many games he has won for them in the shootout over the last 3 years. Everyone says he’s soft, but he really stepped up in the playoffs, first in 08 after being benched, and then last year he was pretty steady. The game is changing to more of a speed/skill game and Kessel has both. Also, last year the B’s played an exciting brand of hockey, a lot less of the typical dump & chase the use to play. I’ve watched more B’s games over the last two years than in the last 10. Seven 20 goal scorers on a team is a gift alot of teams don’t have, Kessel is a big part of that. They only have a small window to try and win it all, maybe a year or two, before FA really hits them hard. (Lucic, Wheeler, Rask, etc.) They have a good mix of young energetic guys. So sick of hearing about how they need defense. If you can’t score, you can’t win. They’d be dumb to let him go or trade him.
They also can’t score if they can’t move the puck out of their own end. They really struggled when they ran up against teams that threw an aggressive forechecking scheme at them last season. Just look at the Carolina series.
Dmitri Kartalnov scored 12 goals in 39 games in 93-94 and never played again in the NHL. Joe Juneau never scored more than 15 goals a year after leaving Boston. Ruzicka only scored 5 more NHL goals after leaving the Bruins. You could not have picked 3 worse examples to back up your point.
by Stanley Cup of Chowder on Jul 3, 2009 12:15 PM EDT up reply actions
Kvartalnov scored 31 goals the year before and then Sutter benched him in playoffs because his defense was poor. Meanwhile they couldn’t buy a goal and lost in the 1st round. Could’ve used this guy on PP. Juneau was a 100 point scorer but wound up in Milbury’s dog house for being soft. Ruzicka scored 30+ goals and carried them for while but of course in typical Bruin fasion, they ran him out of town too. Maybe these aren’t the best examples but they all scored 30 goals at least once in NHL. How about Sturm? Did they let him go too? If so, he and Kessel are at minimum 25 goal scorers. That 50 goals is hard to replace. I understand too that Kessel is far better than these guys but the Bruins have always found a way to lose guys that can put the puck in the net. Let me throw Al Secord in that mix too then. Is that a better example? Maybe they should bring Boychuck up from Providence, then they can keep Kessel too.
so with Kessel not opting for arbitration & no offers yet, does another team send an offer sheet for $4.5m/yr pretty much knowing the B’s won’t/can’t match that?
Kessel was not eligiable for arbitration. A player who is age 21 must have played 4+ pro seasons to qualify for arbitration.
That could happen, but keep in mind that if a team signs Kessel to a $4.5 million offer sheet, that team will have to give up 2 first round picks, a 2nd round pick, and a 3rd round pick.
OFFER SHEET COMPENSATION
$660,000 or below = None
Over $660,000 to $1 million = Third Round
Over $1 million to $2.0 million = Second Round
Over $2.0 million to $3.0 million = First Round and Third Round
Over $3.0 million to $4.0 million = First Round, Second Round, and Third
Round
Over $4.0 million to $5.0 million = Two First Rounds, Second Round, and
Third Round
Over $5 million = Four First Rounds
by Stanley Cup of Chowder on Jul 6, 2009 5:01 PM EDT up reply actions
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