My Kingdom for a Defenseman, Part 4: Hamhuis and Cheese sammywitch

Dan Hamhuis: The Honda Odyssey of Top 4 Defensemen

The story thus far:

Part 1 - Intro

Part 2 - Lovejoy & Schlemko

Part 3 - John-Micheal Liles

In part 1, I identified 3 clues that can lead to a good UFA signing. They are:

1. We want a guy who's underrated, so his market value will likely be below his actual to-the-team value

2. We want a guy who's not that old on a relatively short contract

3. We want a guy who's playing style hopefully won't cause him to burn out quickly after starting his deal

These aren't requirements. They're more like helpful hints. None are necessarily deal makers, and the absence of one is not necessarily a deal breaker.

With that out of the way, let's start looking at this medium sized cup of vanilla ice cream masquerading as an NHL defenseman.

HERO Chart -

How to actually read the HERO chart: http://i.imgur.com/OU1HBr6.jpg

He's currently making 4.25 against the cap and he's 32.

His next contract will probably be cheaper and pretty short.

I wouldn't pay more 4 per year or sign him for more than 3 years.

I'm not doing the rest of the big table because honestly everything is just as you'd expect it to be.

Now, Dan Hamhuis...

How to explain Dan Hamhuis...

Well, have you ever seen one of those fancy new Coke machines? The ones with the touch screen and the 80 gabajillion flavors and all that?

Yeah, that one.

Now, you may be asking, "John, what does any of this star trek soda shit have to do with Dan Hamhuis?"

Well, I'll tell ya what it has to do with Dan Hamhuis.

See this button on there?

Yeah, that one. The one for plain coke. Pressing that button, and then subsequently deciding not to add any fancy flavors to your plain coke...

That very action, right there, is the essence of Dan Hamhuis.

Dan Hamhuis is an obnoxiously, quintessentially, boring top 4 defenseman.

"Is he a good possession player?"

Yeah, pretty good. Top 4 guy, definitely.

"Shot supression?"

He does that.

"Shot generation?"

That one, too.

"Well, can he generate offense from the blueline?"

Occasionally, yeah. Nothing too crazy, but he'll chip in.

"Special teams?"

Good, but nothing special.

"What about those fancier fancy stats? The shot qualifiers? Can you tell about something that starts with delta? WOWYs? Something interesting, anything interesting?!"

All that stuff seems to be in line with what you'd expect. The delta thingies are good. He's just, well, a normal top 4 D.

I mean, don't get me wrong. He's a good top 4 D. His contract will probably be a pretty good buy. It's just that, there's nothing here to get excited over. He's got no real flaws, but no real strengths.  He's the kind of boring where he's even more boring BECAUSE he's good. He's the solid, uninspired choice that you just HAVE to consider because, well, he's good. And the Bruins, especially need to consider him, because we need anything good. Any good D at all will help. No time to get all fancy about play styles and such. Just git gud.

Anyways, the biggest issue is his age. He's probably got another 2-3 years before he goes off a cliff in terms of quality.

Anyways, would you sign him?

And is there anyone specific you'd like to see covered next?