Ramblings: Cam Ward is a terrible signing (June 20)
Dobber
2016-06-20
Ramblings: Thoughts on Cam Ward, Shea Theodore, Nick Schmaltz, Ian McCoshen, Strombo and more…
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If you didn’t already pick up the Keeper League Fantasy Pack, you can do so here. The Fantasy Prospects Report is already out, and the Fantasy Guide will be out in about six weeks. It works out to about 400 pages of gold for eight or nine bucks per magazine.
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I’m going to offer up my take on some recent events in case you’re interested. Firstly, the one that bothers me the most and that’s Cam Ward. I don’t know how his agent pulled it off but kudos to him. How could he convince GM Ron Francis that if left to free agency, another team would offer him close to $4 million? Ward is getting $3.3 million. This for a goaltender that has been one of the worst in the league for three years running. And he makes more than Eddie Lack! The Hurricanes needed to do one of two things: 1) Roll with Lack and give him a de facto backup goaltender. No controversy, not challenge, just let Lack take the reins. Or 2) sign or trade for a top starter. One that would be clearly ‘the man’ and so Lack would be clearly a backup. And there are no shortage of available starters right now.
But no. Instead they sign a guy who will cannibalize Lack’s starts. Not only will Ward perform worse than Lack (as he proved last year), but he will make Lack perform worse (as he did last year). My Tweet summarized this point:
Eddie Lack, Dec.26-Mar.26
— Dobber (@DobberHockey) June 17, 2016
9-7-4, 2.35, 0.921
What happened before/after that? Ward gobbled up his starts/disrupted the flow.
Lack isn’t a one game here, one game there, kind of goalie. He needs to get lots of starts. So far, this Ward signing is the worst NHL move of the offseason. That’s a real shame, because one of the best moves of the offseason was done by Carolina just a day earlier.
If Ward went to free agency, I would have been shocked – shocked! – if he signed for over $2 million anywhere. I would not have been shocked if all he got was a training camp invite.
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Also, writing “GM Ron Francis” is really, really weird. It seems like half the league is now run by players I used to own in my fantasy leagues.
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Another quick thought is on Anton Forsberg. He signed a one-year, two-way extension with Columbus after a brilliant AHL playoff performance. No big surprise, but certainly notable. In the unlikely event that he had signed a one-way deal (or a two-year contract in which the second year is one-way) then it would have been interesting. His NHL salary would be $650,000 while Joonas Korpisalo’s would be $742,500. Curtis McElhinney is still signed for next year, but he was horrible in 2015-16 and if Sergei Bobrovsky gets hurt the team will turn to one of Forsberg or Korpisalo. Tough to pick a favorite here, but…gun to my head I’d probably take Korpisalo.
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And the last ‘older news’ I’ll weigh in on is the Sami Vatanen signing. It certainly puts to rest the trade rumors, but not surprisingly the Shea Theodore questions have sprung up all over my Twitter feed. Vatanen becomes the highest paid blueliner on the team at $4.475M per season. Will Hampus Lindholm beat that? I think so – he was drafted higher, his production is about 20% lower but he’s bigger and he’s far more important defensively. So the Ducks will then have six defensemen making $3.25M per season or more. They would have about $8 million left to sign about six forwards plus Frederik Andersen. So a trade will have to happen, probably involving Andersen. And another trade involving a defenseman. If paying another team to take a big contract (such as Kevin Bieksa or Clayton Stoner) is needed, then they’ll do it. Think – Chicago using Teravainen to ‘pay’ the other team to take a big contract. If trading a Cam Fowler needs to happen, they’ll do that. But they won’t move a Golden Boy like Hampus Lindholm and I rarely see teams sign-and-trade players, so Vatanen is safe. Fowler is also a Golden Boy, but that status slips a little behind Lindholm (younger, drafted higher) and Vatanen (bigger contract, newly-signed).
At any rate, Shea Theodore is ready for the NHL and I think he’ll be a 40-point player if Fowler is traded. But he’ll be a 25-point player if it’s Stoner or Bieksa who go. That power-play time is key
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Rob Klinkhammer has signed to play with Dynamo Minsk of the KHL.
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Those of you who think the Red Wings can trade the Pavel Datsyuk contract: Ken Holland is “not overly optimistic” that it can happen.
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Nick Schmaltz has turned pro. The 20th overall pick in 2014 is leaving North Dakota so that he can try out for the Blackhawks. I tend to think that he’ll play a season in the AHL this year, but with Chicago’s cap problems I wonder if he’ll get rushed. The Blackhawks didn’t seem to mind rushing Saad or Teravainen, so this is not a team that will season the best prospects for three years in the AHL. Read more on Schmaltz here.
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Another player turning pro is Florida rearguard Ian McCoshen. A former teammate of Mike Matheson, McCoshen was the defensive conscience of the two. He is extensively profiled in the Prospects Report (as are Matheson and Schmaltz, for that matter) and the lowdown on him is basically – draft him if your league counts the physical categories such as hits and PIM. I doubt he gets much of a look this year, but next season I think he’ll be close. More McCoshen here.
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Well, last week I reported that FanDuel and DraftKings are investigating a merger. That could still happen (I think it will). But in the meantime, it looks as though New York will pass a bill into law that will state that daily fantasy sports are games of skill. If that gets signed into law, it will happen on July 1. And at that point, DraftKings and FanDuel will be able to operate in New York once more.
My own opinion: keeper leagues boil down to about 80% skill and 20% luck. One-year leagues it probably slips to 60% skill and 40% luck. For monthly leagues, this is probably 40% skill and 60% luck. And when we get to daily leagues, we’re talking about 20% skill and 80% luck. The smaller the sample size, the smaller the chance of things happening the way they ‘should’ happen.
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Rogers Sportsnet is reportedly replacing Hockey Night in Canada host George Stroumboulopoulos with former host Ron MacLean. The latter shouldn’t have been removed in the first place. Kudos to Rogers for trying to rebrand and refocus when they bought the NHL rights two years ago. But some of their changes needed to be done gradually. If you want to impress the majority of a large group of people, then rarely does a major change work when it’s done all at once. I think CBC had a good plan of going with Ron for another decade, and gradually phasing in Elliotte Friedman. Making a sudden switch to a perceived non-hockey guy was too much for the system.
I actually don’t mind Strombo and I’ve grown used to the change. I don’t think changing back is going to fix ratings. You know what will fix ratings? Having Canadian hockey teams do well. And we’re on the cusp of seeing that. I think all the Canadian teams will have a better season (except Vancouver, I’m so sorry guys…I feel for you), with a couple of them primed to do well for years to come. If four Canadian teams make the playoffs, will Sportsnet attribute their sudden ratings increase to the fact that Ron MacLean is back in as host?
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Here is an interesting article breaking down drafted players by total minutes played. The players who were drafted between 2001 and 2013 were included in the study. Buffalo finished on top – their drafted players played a combined total of 219,583 minutes. Chicago, Washington, Los Angeles, Montreal, Nashville and Pittsburgh finished second through seventh. The goalies are given too much weight, since they play the full 60 minutes, so I would have divided each goaltender’s minutes by three. Curious to see how that would impact the results. For example, Tuukka Rask was by far Toronto’s ‘most played’ draft pick, seeing 18,921 – more than 5000 minutes over the next player (Alex Steen).
Dead last? No surprise here. New Jersey Devils: 78,958. What is a surprise is the fact that Tampa Bay finished 29th at 95,622. They have so many draft picks on the team now with many more on the way, so I’d expect that number to be drastically different if we look at this three years from now.
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The latest DobberProspects Ramblings, Hayden goes over a selection of NHL players who played in the KHL, and who played in the NCAA and delves into their production from one league to the next.
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Strombo is awful. Most of the panel is awful, with the exception of Friedman. Rogers should have been able to poach some of TSN’s talent, but either couldn’t or didn’t. And whoever is doing their set design and lighting needs to get sent to the glue factory.
Also, this old time Canada, folksy, good ol’ fashion quality values stuff they do every game is not only cringe-worthy, but drives real hockey fans away. Americans know how to do sports, and the NFL is the league to imitate – game analysis, telestrators, and guys who know the sport during intermission. I don’t give a shit about little Billy 9-toes in butt-fuck Nunavit getting his first pair of skates so that he can start sucking at hockey too.
Well, speaking strictly as a Dallas Stars fan, I fully endorse the Cam Ward signing.
A soft #1 under 4 million seems reasonable. I’m not a Ward fan but it maintains continuity & buys 2 years to find another solution. Few teams in the NHL pay their #1 less.
Picking a threshold of 41 games played, 1/2 a teams starts, Ward ranked 23rd for starters with a .909 SV %, of the 22 goalies above him only 4 will be paid less money than what Ward just signed for. Mrazek, Allen, Andersen & Jones, Jones only nominally less at 3 mil per for 2 more years. The pattern with all these goalies? All are young & essentially have just become starters & aren’t yet being paid as such. Andersen will be getting a significant raise well above the monies Ward just signed for. Mrazek may also. Allen & Jones when their contracts expire in 1 & 2 years respectively significantly more.
Now before I go much further let me be clear, I don’t like Ward. I have commented on him here negatively; copied from another site I post to regularly, every time Lyle has raised his name but in fairness to Ward, Carolina isn’t exactly a great team. 1/2 there starting D last season were rookies, Hanafin, Pesce & Slavin, 2/3rd’s of the remainder was or is past it’s best before date, Liles & Hainsey. No slight to Hainsey but if he’s playing as your #2 Dman at age 35 that’s a problem. None of things bode well for any goalie to put up decent SV% or GA.
The forward group doesn’t look any better in helping to stop other teams from scoring either. A group of young up & coming players with the odd fully developed NHL player, Staal & Skinner essentially & a bunch of players that shouldn’t be playing on any NHL roster.
The only area Carolina excelled in as a team last season was on the PK, they ranked 6th. GF 25th best, GA 13th worst, PP efficiency 24th. That said all doesn’t look bleak but Carolina is in a full scale rebuild. By the time it’s done they will be playing in Quebec or Seattle.
What I said is that Ward at cap hit of 3.3 per for 2 years is great value & it is. No other legitimate starter even a soft 1 like Ward can be had at this price point & it gives Carolina 2 years to find a better solution, allow the depth of solid young players to develop, gives Ronnie options & the cap space to use if ownership is so inclined to buy assets like he just did with Teravainen.
I can’t believe I’m defending Ward but the goalie market isn’t as over supplied with starters as people think. UFA’s that have been starters, Reimer? Signed goalies or RFA’s that might be in play? Andersen, Fleury & Bishop. Andersen will be getting significantly more money than Ward’s 3.3 cap hit for 2 years. Bishop significantly more; twice as much minimum when he resigns some where, & Fleury is already making essentially 2.5 mil more per season, almost twice as much now. I don’t care what goalie played in Carolina the last 3 years their #’s wouldn’t be very good. No position better reflects the play of everyone in front of him.
At a cap hit of 3.3 for 2 years, Carolina gets good value & buys time for either Nedeljkovic, Altshuller or another goalie to become their starter. Perhaps Carolina reenters the goalie market next summer pre expansion & gets 1 of the goalies mentioned above or other that might become available as their value the closer to the expansion draft will hit rock bottom. You think Ward was bad last season, Lack was brutal last season, far worse than Ward & had a greater # of softer starts, combined they will be paid 6.05 mil, 150K more than Dallas is paying Lehtonen. Their are a # of teams paying far more for their #1 than Carolina is going to pay Ward & they had worse seasons, Rinne in Nashville foremost & non are playing behind as bad a team as Ward did.
Now I have to kill myself as I can’t believe I’m coming to the defense of Ward. Weird how we can have such a different view of a player signing. Ha-ha!
It’s good to have someone come to Ward’s defense – we’ve searched high and low to find someone!
But Lack’s cap hit as a No.1 is even better. And Option 1 of my two options had Lack as the starter, and a true backup as a backup (like a Johnson or Montoya). Then you’d have the lowest paid starter (and a better goalie than Ward, as you can see by the numbers I posted in my Tweet snippet)
I wish it was someone other than me. Ha-ha! Sorry I don’t do twitter, facebook, what have you. Like Rick Dudley I’m old school. If Lack was better he would have won more than 12 games in 31 starts against weaker competition & posted better goals against averages & save percentages. Breaking stats down to look for data that can help you win fantasy sports is great but games are played in there entirety not just at even strength. Being a better even strength goalie, etc, is virtually meaningless as when the dust settles the team that scores the most goals wins regardless of scored at even strength, on the power play or short handed.
There are so many anomalies with analytics & no way to factor in luck; call it what you want, & luck is a huge part of sports, hell it’s a huge part of life, or stupid break downs in coverage, missed coverage specifically, that allowed for the goal to be scored with no fault made by the goalie but his teammates. Add in the human error, how this data is acquired & accumulated & the flaws with the science of it leave alot to be desired.
Old world stats, coupled with the eye test, watching film of all scoring opportunities to truly qualify the scoring opportunity & what happened to allow it are still employed by all NHL teams & allow teams to evaluate the situation better than just looking at #’s new or old. I am in no way disparaging analytics & as the NHL moves to improve the accumulation of that data it will significantly improve it’s value. Chips in skates; pants, jerseys where ever, so we know who’s on the ice & where when goals are scored is essential.
The NHL can’t track conventional stats now well, the simple stuff like shots, scoring chances, hits, blocked shots, give aways, etc. So although I read & consume analytics, as a reference source only, not fact, nor does it seriously alter my opinion of a player due to the numerous anomalies & nature of my fantasy leagues scoring systems. Possession is meaningless to me. I find it interesting but nothing more.
Sit down for even 1 game & just track 1 of these basic old world stats. Do so at least 10 times & extrapolate the data. You will be shocked at how different your #’s are from the NHL’s. It’s mind boggling to me. It’s so subjective in nature it seriously calls into question the validity of any of the data. The exception being goals scored for & against & when, PP, EVS, SH etc. The NHL actually gets this right almost all the time even after review they still screw that up occasionally.
No, I embedded the Tweet in the Ramblings. See Lack’s stats? My point is, let’s give him a mulligan for October/November (new team, system, etc). Then he kicked ass. Then Ward returned from injury and Lack’s starts were cannibalized and when he starts once per week he sucks. Lack needs to start a lot. A LOT. Proof is in the numbers I embedded in the Ramblings above. His GAA and SV% were fantastic when he could start nine out of 10 games, or eight out of 10.
You may well be right but he’s not going to get that opportunity. Nor did he get any where near that many consecutive starts or starts in that period of time in Carolina last season, so I assume your using his stats from his time in Vancouver?
Lack had 2 stretches last season where he even played more than 2 games in a row. Dec 8th thru 15th; 4 games allowing 14 goals, & January 17th thru Feb 3rd; 6 games; allowing 15 goals! His #’s weren’t really great in anyway in either of those stretches. In the 6 game stretch he did post 2 shutouts although 1 came against Toronto, that means he allowed those 15 goals in the 4 remaining games. The other came against Chicago who was playing their 5th game in 7 nights! Show me where analytics picks up that variable? Or how many teams actually win when playing so many games in such a short period of time?
Again great reference sources but far more dynamics in play than any 1 stat can provide for.
Two things:
1. Lack is not going to get that opportunity. That was the entire point of that part of my Ramblings. What did you think I was trying to say?
2. Those are two great examples, Striker, of two stretches of Lack’s ineptness. Again I wonder if you read my Ramblings. Because I note one big 20-game stretch where his save percentage was 0.921. Doesn’t matter now. The Ward signing, a stupid one, ruined that. Lack won’t get a chance. Best thing that could happen to Carolina now is if Ward misses a big chunk of time due to injury and Lack gets his shot.
BTW you can fiddle around with different time windows, as well as see different SV% at different distances from the net, for Lack here: http://dobberhockey.com/players/eddie-lack
I read them & don’t disagree specifically. Just providing a different perspective. It wouldn’t be any fun if we see it the same way.
I like the signing for Carolina. 3.3 per in cap hit for a soft #1 is good value. As the stats show based on SV% for goalies that started at least 1/2 their teams games he comes cheap & ranked out at 23rd. Still no better stat for me than SV% but like almost all stats flawed as to many other factors in play.
Lack was terrible, given a choice of him or Ward I take Ward. The reality is that Carolina is rebuilding they don’t really want to win, they want high draft picks & are still at least 3 years from being a real playoff contender.
Every potential #1 goalie to sign moving forward, Reimer, Andersen, Allen & Jones when the reup will be getting significantly more money than Ward. The loan possible exception being Mrazek as he his zero leverage & a very small sample size but I bet he still gets 2.75 to 3 on a 2 year bridge deal.
Again Ward comes cheap & short term. He will be exposed in the expansion draft & potentially could be selected. Las Vegas will take the best player available from each of the 30 teams factoring in salaries.
It just seemed like you were making statements that I made in the Ramblings, as if you didn’t read them, so I was confused ;)
Lack being terrible isn’t the point. We can agree or disagree on that one, no big deal. Ward could have been signed for half that. But Ward should not have been signed at all. Signing Ward hurts the team if Lack truly sucks (as you believe) and signing Ward hurts the team if Lack is secretly decent (as I believe). Signing Ward hurts. And overpaying Ward hurts more.
We’ll have to agree to disagree. I like the cap hit & term.
A few more points to support Striker’s argument:
1) Carolina only has Rask and Nash as important players to re-sign, and neither are getting big money. With the Ward contract, it puts them about $4 million over the floor for this season, and they probably end up about $8 or $9 million above when the season starts. This will be important flexibility if Francis wants to deal a player like Staal or Skinner or Wisniewski at some point during the year.
2) Next year, Wisnewski’s $5.5 million contract and Bickell’s $4 million contract are up. Those alone will wipe out Carolina’s cap floor cushion, and with the expansion draft looming, it will only put them further from the floor with no major pieces to re-sign to big contracts (unless Teravainen has a huge year). Francis does not seem like a GM who wants to rely on a FA signing just to make the team cap compliant, as it introduces a lot of extra uncertainty and is essentially a waste of money for a team that is struggling in its market. Ward’s contract will provide a small cushion to lessen the strain on Carolina’s need to get to the cap floor.
3) Ward is a presence, both in the locker room and as a familiar face for Hurricane fans. With the team apparently hanging by a thread in Raleigh, it makes a little bit of economic sense to retain one of the few recognizable names, and with so many young players, a veteran on the team who is also engaged in the local community is more important that I think we give credit for.
Essentially, this contract is a means to ensure Carolina can manage the cap floor over the next two years while giving the team some name continuity and recognition, especially with Eric Staal unlikely to return. I think Francis knows exactly what kind of goalie Ward is, but it is much more palatable to ownership and fans to hand out that kind of money to a guy who has done something for the team and is an important part of the franchise’s history.
I really like your No.3 argument. That’s the best counterpoint on here.
Bottom line though – they could have waited and easily signed Ward for under $2 million. And if they lost Ward (to another sucker), then there are 10 other Wards out there they could sign for less. Money wasted. Even Ramo would have been a better signing (he’s a UFA too).
I would have signed Montoya for $1.1 million, and rolled with Lack as the Starter. They aren’t winning Cups anyway, may as well give Lack one year as the de facto No.1 and see how they do
I get that from a hockey standpoint, it is isn’t good value. But look at their cap situation in 2017-18. Going by General Fanager, they have just $31 million committed to 10 players. Assuming a $76 million cap, they’ll have to find another $30 million in salary just to hit the cap floor (about 2.4 million per player), and they don’t have any big-ticket RFAs that will eat up big chunks of that. They’ll likely also have a few more ELCs on their books from players like Fleury and Aho, so they need some bigger numbers on their books to balance that. Trading for anchor contracts is always an option, but it’s a dangerous game to play to assume you’re going to snag one or two of those in the next 18 months. When you appear desperate, teams will take advantage.
Ward’s contract was an easy way to sell ownership on a big number to eat up a little bit of that floor-gap without triggering the fanbase. Besides, the size of this contract, given where the team is in the rebuild, is hardly a guarantee of a certain number of starts. I don’t think Ward or Francis think Ward’s going to be starting very many games. This is a win-win signing as far as I can tell – Francis inches closer to the cap floor with a player that has value to the team off the ice, and Ward gets paid.
If the cap floor is seriously an issue, then do this deal in September when it’s 100% clear that it is indeed an issue. In the meantime, a Bickell contract here, a Datsyuk contract there, a big UFA signing like Okposo or Yandle (overpay THEM by $2 million, not Ward) and the problem is solved while at the same time generating fan buzz.