Jaroslav Halak vs. Carey Price: How Are NHL Decisions Working Out?
There was a lot of player movement in the offseason.
There were some conventional trades involved, but most of the movement saw players leaving town for financial, psychological, philosophical or perhaps even karmic reasons. The only factors I'm inclined to discount for being responsible for player transactions in the NHL would be numerology and feng shui. And I'm not positive about numerology.
This is not only a look at how some players who were traded for each other are doing with their new teams. This is also an analysis of how players who were brought in to replace generally more expensive players are managing to fill those roles. It is also a peek at how those more expensive guys are faring in their new digs.
It's a quick look at which team is doing worse or better generally as a result of these moves.
Jaroslav Halak vs. Carey Price
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Here in the title matchup are two goaltenders who weren't traded for each other. Instead Carey Price was chosen over fan favourite Jaroslav Halak to be the starter in Montreal. Playoff hero Halak was bundled off to St Louis for prospects and to be their playoff hero. How has that been working out for both teams?
Carey Price has looked very good in Montreal. There's been an improvement made in team defense so far by the Canadiens and that seems to have allowed Price to get his feet, or his knees, under him. He has played all but one of Montreal's games this year.
He's been steady grading to spectacular so far. His .919 save percentage is an improvement from last years respectable numbers. He's 10th in the league among the goalies who have played at least eight games.
He still looks vulnerable over the glove, especially when he goes down early, but he's looked calm and unbeatable low when the puck is in close and he's down on his knees. The lack of a viable alternative seems to have shut the Montreal fans up and provided Price with a safe place to play from. He's looked like a very good NHL goalie so far this year.
Jaroslav Halak meanwhile has been nothing short of spectacular. His .944 save percentage and 1.46 goals against average have him only behind Tim Thomas among the goalies who have played at least eight games.
Halak is playing on a St Louis team that currently gives up a league-fewest 26.5 shots against per game. That is a huge improvement over the 32.1 shot per game workload he succeeded with in Montreal last year. His play hasn't suffered from having that kind of defensive support.
Halak looks to be one of the big reasons that St Louis is leading the Western Conference so far this year.
ST LOUIS: WIN MONTREAL: WIN
Yes this appears to be the dreaded win-win scenario. Both players are playing great. Both teams are doing well. The fact that Halak seems to be a significantly better goalie than Price is no longer an issue. If they ever meet in a Stanley Cup Final, I guess then it will be a story, but until then it's no problem.
The NHL wins too by having both top quality goalies playing all the time rather than having one waiting miserably behind the other for a chance to play.
Phil Kessel vs. Tyler Seguin
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Young star Phil Kessel came into his own in Boston, scoring 36 goals and getting 60 points in his third full season. Unfortunately Boston had a group of overachieving youngsters to sign. They opted to trade young Kessel for draft picks.
The first of those picks is the highly-regarded Tyler Seguin. He's projected as a complete Steve Yzerman-type prospect. He scores, he passes and he's responsible defensively. He's gotten an opportunity to play in the NHL at center and wing because of the Marc Savard injury.
So far Phil Kessel is winning the contest hands down. He's that rare commodity, a top-quality NHL sniper and he has world class speed. He has seven goals and nine points in 13 games so far this year. Seguin, playing in the NHL as an 18-year old, has three goals and five points so far in 11 games. This is all while playing a mere 13 minutes per game and getting his feet wet in the NHL.
TORONTO: WIN BOSTON: LOSE
Unfortunately for Toronto, this comparison will be going on for a decade. Kessel is probably approaching being as good as he can be at the NHL level. A first-rate center to play with probably gives him a chance to be a forty or fifty-goal scorer.
Seguin, barring injury, will only get better. The second player taken in this deal Jared Knight of the London Knights will get a shot at the NHL in the next couple of years. Throw in whoever Boston takes next year in the first round and you have to believe Boston will eventually win this trade. It may take a decade to sort this one out and it could turn out to be a win-win scenario, but it's not over yet.
John Madden vs. Marty Reasoner vs. Fernando Pisani
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Everyone knows about the cap trouble Chicago ran into after winning their Cup. One of the many players they had to let go was veteran checking center John Madden. They simply couldn't afford to pay the veteran especially as the offensive component of his game was dying off.
The 37-year old Madden signed with the defensively exact Minnesota wild.
Marty Reasoner, another veteran checker was picked up in the Dustin Byfuglien deal with Atlanta. Unfortunately it seems that Marty's $1.15 million a year was too much for Chicago to pay for a veteran checker and he moved on to Florida.
Chicago settled on the bargain basement Fernando Pisani to be their checker or their bruising power forward or some combination of the two.
John Madden signed in Minnesota for a little less than the offensively-challenged but younger checking winger Eric Nystrom did. His two goals and minus-seven with the still offensively-struggling Wild haven't impressed. He has played around 16 minutes a night for Minnesota, has been their best faceoff man and he's been a reasonable shot-blocker and takeaway artist so far.
Unfortunately Madden's days of offensive prowess seem past and Minnesota needs more scoring. He's still capable of doing a job in Minnesota, just not the one they need done.
Reasoner was brought in by Dale Tallon in Florida to try to get their historically horrible defensive play under control. The speedy Reasoner had 30 points with the Thrashers two years ago and this year he's tied for fourth in scoring on a much improved Panther squad. His offensive success has to have such one-dimensional offensive players as Corey Stillman, Shaun Matthias and perhaps even the team's nominal first-line center Stephen Weiss concerned about their ice time.
Reasoner has 11 takeaways to one giveaway and is leading the team in faceoff wins and percentage. Florida has their shots against down from where they lead the league two years in a row to where they give up the 12th fewest shots on goal. Reasoner has been a part of that and has to be one of the best pick-ups for the money in the offseason.
Florida has added defensively skilled players in Reasoner and Mike Weaver and the penalty kill, currently fourth best in the league (88.6%), reflects that.
Fernando Pisani was a very inexpensive free-agent signing. He has been a bit of a takeaway demon with 13, while losing the puck only four times so far. Offensively he's got Madden numbers this year and he's playing a defensive role on a team whose defensive numbers have gotten worse this year.
CHICAGO: LOSE FLORIDA: WIN MINNESOTA: PUSH
While it looks like Chicago has gotten rid of John Madden just in time, they unfortunately couldn't afford an adequate replacement. Pisani has been better than I expected him to be. Reasoner's numbers have to come down as the season goes on, but the role offensive players like Higgins and Bernier need to be worried.
I like the way Dale Tallon, in his first offseason in Florida, went out and addressed their most pressing need, team defense, and did it apparently immediately and successfully. That bodes well for Florida's future. Madden has been good in Minnesota, but they need more offense. A talented checking center can contribute anywhere, but their needs are for more goals.
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Viktor Stalberg vs. Kris Versteeg
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Yet another of the trades forced upon the cap-crunched Blackhawks involved third line sniper Kris Versteeg for the untested Viktor Stalberg.
The Swedish left winger Stalberg saw his first NHL action last year where he had nine goals and 14 points in 40 games for the Leafs. He comes cheap, costing the Blackhawks only $850,000 this season. He has seen some top two line ice time so far this year. He's rewarded Chicago to date, showing some offensive skill. He has four goals and eight points for his 12:14 nightly ice time average.
The talented Versteeg has proven himself a skilled offensive performer, twice scoring 20 goals in a season while playing a third line role in Chicago. He has been shunted to the first line in Toronto and his two goals and four assists in 14 games are seen more as like third line numbers by the fans in the Big Smoke.
CHICAGO: WIN TORONTO: LOSE
This is another exchange that will take a long time getting evaluated. I have to believe Versteeg's numbers will improve. Is Stalberg good enough to play among the top six in Chicago? Time will tell. The one interesting piece of information that seems to have come from all this is that Chicago's third line centers last year may have been better than Toronto's first line centers so far this year. Look for Nazim Kadri get another shot at being the first line center in Toronto before the year is done.
Pekka Rinne vs. Dan Ellis
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This was another situation where a team unwilling to pay for two top quality goalies made a decision about who their starter would be and who they would let go. In this case it was the Nashville Predators who settled on Pekka Rinne and left Dan Ellis to be signed by the Tampa Bay Lightning.
Ellis signed for $700,000 less than current starter Mike Smith and has proven himself the better goalie of the two. He sports a .910 save percentage, 2.47 goals against average and has two shut-outs in comparison to Smith who has a terrible .869 save percentage, a 3.63 goals against average and no shut-outs. Ellis has established himself as the starter in Tampa Bay.
Pekka Rinne in Nashville costs $3.4 million a year and has very Dan Ellis numbers with a .910 save percentage, one shut-out and a 2.86 goals against average. The backup in Nashville actually has had better numbers than Rinne so far this season. Can we expect to see Anders Lindback taking over the starting job in Nashville in another couple of years?
TAMPA BAY: PUSH NASHVILLE: PUSH
Tampa Bay seems to have picked up a starter who is cheaper and better than Mike Smith. He has not been comparable to last years starter Antero Nittymaki, who is actually doing very well in San Jose for a mere $500,000 a year more.
Nashville has the same goalie they had last year and he seems fine. They let a proven backup goalie go and while their current backup is doing fine they could have had Ellis for almost the same money.
Neither team comes out of this smelling great.
Ilya Kovalchuk vs. Ilya Kovalchuk
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At the trade deadline last year the Atlanta Thrashers, unable to sign star Ilya Kovalchuk to a 10-year $100 million dollar deal, traded him along with defenseman Anssi Salmela to the New Jersey Devils for prospects Niclas Bergfors and Patrice Cormier and New Jersey's first round pick, who became part of the Dustin Byfuglien deal to Chicago. The teams also exchanged second round picks so New Jersey got US-born defenseman Jon Merrill and Atlanta shipped that pick to Chicago for Byfuglien et al.
Ilya was the New Jersey rental player acquired at the deadline to help push them on a long Stanley Cup run. When that didn't happen they were faced with the prospect of replacing Kovalchuk's offense next year. They filled that gap by signing, you guessed it, Ilya Kovalchuk.
Ilya finally was allowed to sign a 15-year $100 million contract that gives the team a $6.6-million dollar a year cap hit for Kovalchuk. The Devils were subsequently fined by the NHL for their original attempt to sign Kovalchuk. They were fined three million dollars for violating the "spirit" of the CBA and lost their 2011 third round draft pick. New Jersey is also being forced to give up it's first round pick in one of the next four years.
So which Kovalchuk is better; deadline day rental Kovalchuk or long-term Kovalchuk?
The talented sniper was a point a game player last year with Atlanta and New Jersey. He was a point a game player in the regular season and in the playoffs. An aging Devil team unfortunately just didn't succeed in the playoffs. The addition of Kovalchuk for a couple months was thus seen as a net loss for the team as they gave up quite a bit to rent him. Ilya himself though performed well.
This season has started slow with four goals and nine points in 16 games. His salary has upset the structure in New Jersey and forced them early in the season to play a game with a fifteen-man roster because of their severe salary cap problems. His style, a selfish sniper, has not meshed well with what has been a team-first philosophy in New Jersey. He will score his goals and get his points. I'd be surprised if he's not near to being a point a game, 40-goal scorer by the end of the year. That said, he's going to cost an old New Jersey team two more draft picks, one of them a first rounder.
NEW JERSEY: LOSE NEW JERSEY: LOSE
The Devils cup run last year obviously went nowhere. I think that was more because of weak defensive play and the decline of Martin Brodeur than because of Ilya Kovalchuk. Ilya has not meshed well in New Jersey. He has plenty of time to produce and contribute during his 15-year contract. Right now however, the whole thing looks like a disaster.
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