"The desert around their walls is called the Garden of Bones. Every time the Qartheen shut their gates, the garden grows."

I thought of that quote from the second season of the Game of Thrones when I found out that Shayne Gostisbehere had been traded to Arizona. Here are the particulars:

The Flyers paid the 'Yotes to take the Ghost contract off their hands, an indication of both the market for a 4/5 PP defenceman making around $4.5M annually in a flat-cap era and Arizona's intention this offseason. They need more futures, and need to build for the future. The team, as assembled, including any prospects, is nowhere near the calibre of Colorado or Vegas.

And so, the Garden of Bones grows. Datsyuk, Hossa, Pronger, Ladd, etc. This has been going on for years. You'd think with all the bad contracts they've taken on, they'd have assembled a good, young team by now.

What Arizona gets

Ghost is a contentious player, both in fantasy and the real world. We saw his upside, as he had an 82-game pace from 2015-18 of 56 points. That has fallen off a cliff over the last three years, all the way down to an 82-game pace of 35 points.

Something changed. With Ghost, we can see it very clearly. From CJ Turtoro's viz, we can see that in 2017-18, his 65-point season, he had uber-elite transition/playmaking stats:

That is 95^th percentile-or-better in both zone entries and exits, and the 85^th percentile in shot assists. There is a very good reason why he was an elite offensive defencemen for the bulk of three seasons.

But, like I said, something changed. This was 2019-20, only two seasons later:

Now, we'd be remiss if we didn't mention his injuries. He played the 2018-19 season with a knee injury and seemingly played with one in 2019-20 as well. Nagging knee injuries for two years will put a serious hamper on any player's ability to produce.

By my eye, and by some of the stats, 2021 was a rebound season. It may not look like it by his stats, but he did pace out to 40 points/82 games and his play-driving metrics, both at 5-on-5 and on the PP, were similar this past season to his last great season in 2017-18. By both my eye and by some of the underlying metrics, Ghost had a more Ghost-like season this year. But the team's goaltending made everyone look bad and now here we are.

It'll be hard for Ghost to really bounce-back fantasy-wise in Arizona. There just isn't enough scoring talent. He can be a 40-point guy with consistent top PP minutes but if those minutes go to Jakob Chychrun instead, he may not be fantasy viable at all. How they use him will determine whether he can be rostered or not.