Ramblings: Stützle’s Extension and his Future Value; Thoughts on Conor Timmins – September 9

Michael Clifford

2022-09-09

Ottawa locked up another one of its core pieces on Wednesday as they signed centre/winger Tim Stützle to an eight-year deal worth north of $8M a year on the cap. The third overall pick from 2020 has one year left on his entry-level deal, managed 22 goals and 36 assists last season, and is primed to start the year on the second line for Ottawa with Alex DeBrincat and Claude Giroux.

For cap league owners, like the extension given to Tage Thompson, there's a big decision to make. Not that the two are on comparable development curves given the age difference, but projecting their future after a breakout season is one thread they do have in common. A monster pay raise over what they had been making is another.

For that reason, it's worth looking at what Stützle has done so far in his career, what others like him have done for their careers, and whether he has the upside to justify the cap hit he'll carry after the 2022-23 season. We are going to use Natural Stat Trick and our Frozen Tools for most of our data. Others will be cited as they're used.

We'll start with something that isn't data-related, at least not directly. Just watching Stützle in his second season, there was an obvious change in his play away from the puck. The guy was an absolute bloodhound in tracking the puck when the opposition had it. Whether it was recovering/pressuring when the puck was dumped into Ottawa's zone, applying significant back pressure on the puck carrier while he was back-checking, or hustling to turn a 3-on-2 into a 3-on-3, his tireless defensive effort was noticeable (it seemed) every single game. Again, not directly related to pure data, but according to Evolving Hockey, he went from having considerably below average defensive impacts in his first season to being above average:

That is a huge, huge turnaround. We don't often care about defensive play from a fantasy perspective – we want shots, and goals, and points, mostly. But being good defensively should help his ice time as he earns the trust of the coach and being able to create turnovers helps transition from defence to offence. Everything is related in a game of hockey and being good at one end can help at the other.

As for his production, the raw numbers aren't huge, but they're still excellent for a player his age. When looking through data since the 2007 season, the number of players that combined for at least 30 goals and 30 primary assists in their age-19 and age-20 seasons was not long. There are the generational players like Connor McDavid and Auston Matthews, of course, but it's who's-who of high-end producers. The bottom of the list are names like Peter Mueller, Sean Monahan, and Pierre-Luc Dubois (and Dubois is still just 24 years old while Monahan was derailed by injuries). Otherwise, we're talking about guys like Steven Stamkos, Taylor Hall, Patrick Kane, Nicklas Backstrom, Sebastian Aho, Mikko Rantanen, Nathan MacKinnon, Matthew Tkachuk, Nikolaj Ehlers, Sam Reinhart, and so on. It's one of those lists that really helps put what he's done at his age into perspective.

Of course, the crux of that is how much of his production has come on the power play. He managed 26 of 58 points in 2021-22 with the man advantage, which speaks to some struggle producing at 5-on-5. In fact, his points per 60 minutes at 5-on-5 was slightly lower than Alex Formenton. But there's a catch: two of his three most-common line mates in 2021-22 were Formenton and Connor Brown (Brady Tkachuk was the other, mostly for power play reasons). In other words, he was largely kept away from the team's top stars and for a rebuilding roster, the scoring depth just wasn't there. Brown is a good two-way winger, but he also has averaged 40 points every 82 games for his career. An offensive star, he is not.

When Stützle did play with Tkachuk at 5-on-5, the pair scored more often than when apart: 2.9 goals per 60 minutes at 5-on-5 when they were line mates, and 2.4 for Stützle without Tkachuk and 2.7 for Tkachuk without the young German. The defensive numbers weren't good, but this was a team that struggled for large chunks of the last two years. That isn't a big concern for me.

Getting back to the power play, while we'd like to see huge 5-on-5 production numbers, we can't discount what he did with the man advantage. Again, we're going to go back to 2007 and see which players aged 19-20 years old managed to do what Stützle did. So, which players managed at least 10 goals and 20 assists on the power play in their age 19/20 seasons? It's much the same group: Svechnikov, Kopitar, Pettersson, Eichel, Tavares, Toews, Draisaitl, Matthew Tkachuk, Rantanen, Marner, Backstrom, Patrick Kane, Monahan, Matthews, and Stamkos. (McDavid isn't on the list because he wasn't a huge PP goal scorer early in his career.) Again, the worst fantasy players on that list are names like Jonathan Toews, Nicklas Backstrom, and Sean Monahan. If that is roughly the floor for what to expect from Stützle, well, there's clearly a lot of upside.

One area I've started to pay more attention to from a fantasy perspective is scoring chance contributions (SCC). That simply adds the number (or rate) of scoring chances a player has and adding the number of scoring chance setups they have for teammates. I use it as a proxy for being a dual threat in the offensive zone and can help identify forwards who are real offensive engines that may not leap off the page immediately. From Corey Sznajder's tracking data, Stützle has been above average in both seasons, and more than doubled his SCC per 60 minutes from his rookie year to his sophomore season. While not perfect 1-to-1's, the 20-year-old compared favourably to names like Vincent Trocheck, Cam Atkinson, and Taylor Hall:

He is clearly not elite in this area yet; he's not on the level of Kirill Kaprizov, Jason Robertson, or Johnny Gaudreau. But he's still extremely young – two years younger than Robertson, even – and to see growth in this area, combined with his improved defensive play, speaks to the ascent he's had as a player. It is always a good sign to see an upward trajectory from a highly-touted prospect early in their careers. Development is not linear, and we shouldn't expect this every campaign, but him actually doing it is a great sign for us.

He still has weaknesses. Most young players do unless they're in that McDavid/Matthews tier (and even then, they improved in different areas as they have aged). He's still not a great playmaker and he doesn't shoot a lot – his shot rate per minute actually declined in 2021-22. Not that he has to be a guy that lays in 3.5-4 shots per game, but his per-minute shot rate at 5-on-5 last year was lower than Luke Glendening, Mason Appleton, and Adam Erne. Again, he doesn't have to be a shot machine, but he does need to fire the puck a bit more. Until that improves, him being a true dual producer (goals and assists) remains a question mark.

As for 2022-23, the issue of his power play role comes to the forefront. We mentioned earlier how much of his production came with the power play last season, and he earned more PPTOI per game than names like Mitch Marner, Patrice Bergeron, and Mika Zibanejad. The team added Claude Giroux and Alex DeBrincat in the offseason, both almost certain locks for the top PP unit. Tkachuk is surely going to be there, too, as will Thomas Chabot. The last spot comes down to Josh Norris, Drake Batherson, and Stützle. We are all aware of the potential for Batherson to have a significant suspension, so let's just cut it down to Norris and Stützle.

Stützle, a left shot, often played near the top of the left circle on his strong side on the power play, with Norris, also a left shot, at the top of the opposite circle in a one-time position. Tkachuk occupied the net-front position. From HockeyViz, this is what their shot maps looked like on the PP in 2021-22:

As for the incoming Giroux, a right shot, he often played where Stützle was stationed for Ottawa. He did play some at the top of the right circle when he made his way to Florida though, to leave Huberdeau where he was. In that sense, Ottawa could try Giroux on the right circle, Stützle on the left, Tkachuk net-front, and DeBrincat in the slot, and three out of the four guys would be in spots familiar to them. It would look something like this:

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But it does leave DeBrincat in an awkward spot. Slot guys can be trigger-men (think T.J. Oshie in Washington), but that's not where he played in Chicago. His shot map came exclusively from the left circle, where Stützle typically plays. If they go in this direction, their moving their big offseason acquisition to a spot he hasn't played before.

The thing is this: someone's going to have to be out of position. All of Norris, Giroux, Stützle, and DeBrincat play often at the top of either circle (players move around on the power play but we're talking setups). One of those guys is going to have to play in the middle as the trigger guy, and it's hard for me to imagine it's either of Stützle or Giroux, and Giroux is not being left off the power play. They could run Giroux/DeBrincat on the wings, a goal scorer in Norris as the middle-man, and that would make a lot of sense. Giroux would have access to DeBrincat in a one-time spot, with Norris able to slide low for redirections or to clean up long rebounds. Also, Norris isn't a really great playmaker, and the middle of the PP isn't a spot for a great playmaker anyway. He leads the team in goals per minute on the power play these last two years – by a lot – and has scored at a higher per-minute rate on the PP than names like Stamkos and Zibanejad. It would seem to be malpractice to leave Norris off the power play. So, rather than the setup we have in the graphic above, I think it'll look something like this:

All that is to say: without injury, I don't think Stützle gets prime power-play minutes. He will have a huge improvement in his 5-on-5 line mates, at least offensively, but losing that power play time could limit his fantasy upside. To wit: if he were to double his 5-on-5 production from last year, he'd have 50 such points. But no one from Ottawa last year that wasn't a top PP fixture cracked 10 PPPs. In other words, he could literally double his 5-on-5 output, but if he loses that top PP role, he may not improve much on the 58 points he posted in 2021-22. That is how important PP production is to him, and any high-end fantasy producer, really.  

Lastly, we have to mention his physicality. He jumped all the way to 125 hits last year, which adds a nice wrinkle to his fantasy profile. Assuming he starts on a line with Giroux, he may not take all the faceoffs as the two switch off depending on where the faceoff is. But he'll still be a guy that can be relied upon for a few face-off wins per game and often listed in the fantasy game with a winger tag. Even if he doesn't improve his raw point production, being able to put up 20 goals, 40 assists, 125 hits, and 200 faceoff wins as a winger is a very good multi-cat season.

But when it comes to looking beyond 2022-23, when his extension kicks in, we have problems. All of the guys we've named for PP1 contention are signed through 2024-25 (assuming they re-sign DeBrincat, which isn't a given until the contract is signed, but I think is very likely). The team could have six very viable PP1 forwards for the next three seasons, and at least five if Batherson does get a lengthy suspension. If Stützle is constantly the odd-man out unless there's an injury, his medium-term upside is capped. The secondary Sens PP forwards generally earned at-or-under two PP minutes a game last year. His best-case scenario with so little PP time would be like Robert Thomas, though his playmaking is considerably better than Stützle's (and he showed that prowess before 2021-22). More likely, it's closer to a 60-point-ish season like Andre Burakovsky just had.

That's the entire problem here. We don't have line combinations yet, so maybe all my worry is for nothing. But if Stützle is bumped from PP1, and stays bumped for years to come, it's really hard to see him having production seasons big enough to justify his $8M+ price tag in cap leagues. How he looks beyond 2025 is another question, but do fantasy owners want to leave a negative value on their rosters for two years once that extension starts? I wouldn't.

With the defensive improvements, it looks like the Sens locked up a great two-way player in the making. But that doesn't mean he'll be a great fantasy asset; just look at guys like Anthony Cirelli, Ondrej Palat, Conor Garland, or Evan Rodrigues. All good-to-great two-way players, none overly valuable in fantasy leagues, and certainly not for $8M a season. Considering the growth Stützle still has to do offensively, keeper/dynasty owners have a big decision to make. Waiting until we get confirmed line combinations is probably the best course of action, but we may have another instance (like Kirby Dach) of the real-world player being worth much more than their fantasy profile.

*

I will be honest and say the headline of this article does it justice: Conor Timmins does seem like a forgotten prospect. It's hard to blame anyone, as he turns 24 in a week and has just 39 NHL games to his name. But the injuries – concussion problems, knee surgery – have severely limited his ability to not just stay on the ice, but to develop.

It is worth noting that in his one full-ish season in the AHL, he had 27 points in 40 games. In his Draft and Draft+1 years in the OHL, he was just shy of a point per game. He also looked good for Colorado in limited action in the COVID 2021 campaign. Arizona seems committed to trading Jakob Chychrun at some point and Shayne Gostisbehere is a trade candidate himself. If he can stay healthy, could Timmins be a year away from a prime role on this blue line? It'll be interesting to follow his season.

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