January 30, 2013
Zamboni Tracks
Finding A Home

by Ryan Wagman

Every NHL offseason works out as a sort of high stakes game of musical chairs for low end UFAs. Without a contract for the next season, job openings are at a premium for those who are not willing to sign AHL or two-way contracts. Pride certainly plays a role, as many of these players surely believe that a team will emerge that likes the cut of their jib and the glide in their stride, and wants to make them a regular. Even Jeff Finger was once given a four-year contract worth $3.5 million per season. So what that he had to play out the second half of that term in the AHL after the Maple Leafs decided to eat the salary in order to move the numbers off their cap total? As of this writing, Finger has not yet signed a contract to play anywhere for the 2013 season.

Inevitably, as in every game of musical chairs you have played since early childhood, when the music stops, someone is left standing. In NHL terms, when the season starts, someone still has not signed a contract. This is not so much referring to an RFA like the still-unsigned Ryan O'Reilly, who has a guaranteed job but lacks agreeable terms. This article is about those veterans who have gotten used to the big league per diems, private jets, and no-wait physiotherapists.

Expecting the salary caps to go down, teams had the full summer (before the lockout halted all activity) to ponder the changing value of NHL talent. As should have been expected, the value of the upper echelon has not changed. Nor has utility changed for those young enough to still be under team and cost control. Rather, the job market began to collapse for the tertiary talent that still commands salaries in the seven-figure range.

This is not a phenomena limited to an offseason perverted by the lockout as this one has been. Last season, there were eight players who were signed to NHL contracts after the season had begun.

In each of those cases, the players involved were forced to accept substantially less than they had earned in the previous seasons. Even Miettinen, the only one of the eight late signings to pick up a seven-figure deal, was coming down from $2.5 million in earnings in 2010-11. Three of the eight have since retired, and another three are either currently unemployed or playing in the minors. Only Miettinen and Bernier were able secure themselves yet another year of NHL wages.

This seasonis no different. If anything, the numbers of former NHLers who have been frozen out has only grown. Much of that is surely due to the abbreviated timespan available to GMs to fill roster holes, forcing some to move forward with younger (cheaper) players. With the summer offseason cut off before the traditional start of a roughly month long training camp, the inevitable early practice, pre-season injuries were not able to occur, thus cutting off one avenue that can usually be relied upon to open doors to straggling UFAs. With only one week of training camp between the ratification of the CBA and the regular season, without any exhibition games to sway opinions, those injuries are now occurring as part of regular season attrition. As such, the early season transaction reports have seen a few former name players ink free agent deals with teams in sudden need. Not counting the lately bought out duo of Wade Redden and Scott Gomez, in-season free agent signings already include blueliner Kent Huskins (signed by Detroit on January 22) and winger Mike Knuble (signed by Philadelphia on January 24). A third, Jason Arnott, came to terms with the Rangers on Saturday, but that deal has now been nullified due to a failed physical.

As we can see in the signing dates for the eight players above, none occurring before December 12, we first note that a good chunk of the season was played out before desperation set in enough for a GM to reach out to their agents. Knuble and Huskins, on the other hand, are both well-respected veterans, who have recent track records of solid productivity on their resumes. The same applies to Arnott, current health notwithstanding.

With the losses of both Nicklas Lidstrom (retirement) and Brad Stuart (UFA to San Jose), the Red Wings entered the season fully expecting to rely on at least one largely unproven blueliner, likely former first rounder Brendan Smith. The only defenseman brought into the organization over the offseason was the perpetually-injured Carlo Colaiacovo. The former Maple Leaf and Blue lived up to his lofty billing by hurting his shoulder in his second game with the Winged Wheel. One day earlier, the Wings lost third pairing rearguard Jakub Kindl to a groin pull. As they had already called up their most ready defender from the AHL in Brian Lashoff when Kindl went down, they were out of ideas and bodies to replace Colaiacovo when the inevitable occurred. Most of the blueliners on the AHL Grand Rapids Griffins are either extremely young—four of the seven were under 24 years old—or poor replacement options, as two of the others are AHL lifers and Nathan Paetsch last appeared in the NHL during the 2009-10 season with Columbus.

With such a severe injury stack, the Wings turned to Huskins to fill a void. Like Colaiacovo, the Clarkson grad has a resume replete with many injury red flags—in the past four seasons, Huskins missed 138 games for one reason or another. Thankfully, when he was healthy, he was also productive, compiling 7.4 GVT across 75 games in the past two seasons between St. Louis and San Jose. If he could have played all of last season at that rate, he would have finished in the top 40 or so of blueliners across the league. With his history of solid possession metrics, Huskins should fit in well with the Wings, who will rely on him even more than initially planned, as Ian White is expected to miss the next two or three weeks with a leg injury.

In Philadelphia, the story is very similar to the circumstances that brought Kent Huskins to Motown. Within the first few days of the new season, the Flyers saw both Daniel Briere and Zac Rinaldo hit the injured reserve. When Scott Hartnell broke his foot in game three, panic set in. For a system known to be lacking in quality depth, panic meant scouring the dregs of the free agent market. Before last season, Knuble would have been seen as far more than an emergency replacement. A veteran of 1,040 big league games, Knuble has twice topped 30 goals, and passed the 20-goal mark on six other occasions. Those eight high-scoring seasons all came in a row (previous lockout interruption notwithstanding). A boon in the dressing room, the Michigan grad was a classic late bloomer, with his sniping run only beginning at age 30.

Then came last year, Knuble's third of three with the Washington Capitals. At age 39, the Toronto-born, Michigan-bred veteran dropped from 24 goals, 40 points, and 8.7 GVT to only six goals, 18 points, and -0.3 GVT. It may have been the end of the line for Knuble had the Flyers not found themselves short of able-bodied forwards. Even now that Briere has returned to action, the organization has wisely decided to let 2012 draftee Scott Laughton return to the OHL for additional seasoning. While we should not expect a return to his perennial 20-goal pace of past seasons, Knuble should at least provide above replacement-level play for the Flyers for the remainder of this short season.

Kent Huskins and Mike Knuble did not have to wait too long to find NHL suitors, but there are still a few good potential NHL contributors floating in the ether. For those needing blueline help, Randy Jones and Milan Jurcina both offer reasonable depth options at bargain basement prices. Either player could slot in nicely to a third pairing role, while also contributing on the penalty kill. VUKOTA saw both as slightly above 2.0 GVT contributors.

In addition to the aforementioned Jason Arnott, there are more available options up front, including Jason Blake and Andrew Brunette among the goal scoring coterie with Radek Dvorak, Dominic Moore, Marco Sturm, Mathieu Darche, and Darrell Boyce offering skill sets better suited to a bottom trio. All but Sturm are projected by VUKOTA to be above replacement contributors this season with the most expected from Blake, Darche and Moore, although Moore is dealing with the sad passing of his wife in early January, nine months after being diagnosed with liver cancer. If the will is still there, we should expect most of these men to wind up back in the NHL before the trade deadline, filling an unanticipated, but largely predictable hole.

Ryan Wagman is an author of Hockey Prospectus. You can contact Ryan by clicking here or click here to see Ryan's other articles.