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HockeytownRules19

DeKeyser re-signed to a 6 year deal

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I don't think it's the wrong choice because we don't have any replacements. The difference between this signing and the Helm/Glendog is we don't have another 1D to take over. Time will tell.

I agree with this. Whether the article is right or not doesn't even really matter. What was the alternative, letting him go? He would easily have gotten that 5 million per year in the open market. Leaving us with one less good defender.

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I think in 2 yrs, $5M will be a bargain for a #2-#3 defender. He's not a #1 in the nhl, but he is a top guy here. Kenny must get a #1 guy though. I'm not sure if we have a #1 in our system, maybe we will have sacrifice someone to get him...just not Larkin or AA.

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I don't know, there is something to be said about the consistency & reliability of Danny D. He's easily a pair for the top D or he's keeping the 2nd pair in order. Either way he's certainly an unsung hero on this squad much like his idol was-game in and game out

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I'm not a fan of this deal. We overpaid for a middle-pairing defenseman who hasn't demonstrated top-end ability. His basic stats are underwhelming, his advanced stats are awful (granted, brutal deployment is probably a contributing factor there), and he has no extraordinary quality/skill/characteristic that separates him from the pack of good-but-not-great NHL defensemen. At this point in time, he's a #3 or #4 defenseman. That we consider him our best defenseman is a testament to how horribly inadequate our blue line is.

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I got to the chart and saw Karlsson on the "Strong Defensively" part, then immediately closed the page. Told me all I need to know.

Karlsson doesn't have to defend. Why? Because when he's on the ice, the other team is being forced to defend. Why? Because Karlsson is a powerhouse possession-driver. He is the engine that drives his team's attack. He is his team. They are nothing without him.

DeKeyser can "defend well," but you don't win by playing well without the puck and reacting and enduring. You win by having the puck and forcing it down the other team's collective throat.

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That's why karlsson's team does so well every year

Aside from Doughty, whose more of a hybrid... These guys like Subban, Karlsson have had marginal team success especially in the playoffs

First Subban isn't all that good of a possession player so bad example.

Second. Drew Doughty and Duncan Kieth are two of the best possession defenseman in the league and have accounted for 5 of the last 7 Stanley cups.

For the millionth time, I suggest you look stuff about before blindly making anti-possession arguments. Watch how I'm about to make an actual anti-possession argument and actually open up a fair discussion.

Karlsson doesn't have to defend. Why? Because when he's on the ice, the other team is being forced to defend. Why? Because Karlsson is a powerhouse possession-driver. He is the engine that drives his team's attack. He is his team. They are nothing without him.

DeKeyser can "defend well," but you don't win by playing well without the puck and reacting and enduring. You win by having the puck and forcing it down the other team's collective throat.

Karlsson is a great possession player but his career -22 speaks about his defense. To me it shows while he's good at keeping the puck away from the net- which no doubt is part of defense, he chokes when it comes to critical opposition scoring chances. Overal this brings his defensive skills down. Because although he's a good driver like you say, something isn't going well when he's forced to defend. Can't just follow possession metrics as end all be all in my personal opinion. Edited by kickazz

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I'm not saying possession is bad obviously. Karlsson is a guy with unreal offensive skills but I would rather have a balanced number one that might not have that great of possession numbers. Doughty and Keith can actually play defense. They are just great defensemen top to bottom

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First Subban isn't all that good of a possession player so bad example.

Second. Drew Doughty and Duncan Kieth are two of the best possession defenseman in the league and have accounted for 5 of the last 7 Stanley cups.

For the millionth time, I suggest you look stuff about before blindly making anti-possession arguments. Watch how I'm about to make an actual anti-possession argument and actually open up a fair discussion.

Karlsson is a great possession player but his career -22 speaks about his defense. To me it shows while he's good at keeping the puck away from the net- which no doubt is part of defense, he chokes when it comes to critical opposition scoring chances. Overal this brings his defensive skills down. Can't just follow possession metrics as end all be all in my personal opinion.

Karlsson will improve on the defensive end, making him scary good. He has been working hard on it for the last couple of summers. It'll be interesting to see how far he'll get.

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I agree that teams need offensive defensemen that can drive possession, but teams also need steady, reliable, two-way defensemen such as DeKeyser. This is not a home-run deal by any stretch, but I think it's a solid contract, one that absolutely needed to get hammered down. We certainly could not afford to lose DeKeyser, and although I thought he might take a bit of a hometown discount, I doubt we could have gotten a whole lot lower than what he signed.

Look around the league at some of the number 2 / 3 defensemen (which is what I believe DeKeyser is) and see what kind of contracts they're on...

Tobias Enstrom - $5.75M over 5 years.

Marc Staal - $5.7M over 6 years.

Jeff Petry - $5.5M over 6 years.

Dan Girardi - $5.5M over 6 years.

Brooks Orpik - $5.5M over 6 years.

Matt Carle - $5.5M over 6 years.

James Wisniewski - $5.5M over 6 years.

Jay Bouwmeester - $5.4M over 5 years.

Dennis Wideman - $5.25M over 5 years.

Zach Bogosian - $5.14M over 7 years.

Andy Green - $5M over 5 years

Andrew MacDonald - $5M over 6 years.

Alexander Edler - $5M over 6 years.

Paul Martin - $5M over 5 years.

Is there a single one of them you can say is definitively better than DeKeyser? Nope.

DeKeyser needs to be paired with a number one puck moving defenseman, and then we would finally see what he is really capable of.

No one is saying he's elite, and he's not being paid like he's elite. He's a solid number 2 / 3, and that's exactly how he's getting paid. Good contract, that has the potential to turn out to be a great contract...

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I know it won't happen but imagine bringing Karlsson over here, fuel to the fire on the Swedish Mafia discussion.

Some say the reason the Red Wings backed into the playoffs last year even though we lost our last game was because Don Zetterberg made a phone call to Erik Karlsson before the Ottawa vs. Boston game.

Some say he made Karlsson an offer he couldn't refuse. The end result was 6-1 Ottawa allowing the Wings and the Swedish Mafia entry into the playoffs.

Edited by kickazz

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Some say the reason the Red Wings backed into the playoffs last year even though we lost our last game was because Don Zetterberg made a phone call to Erik Karlsson before the Ottawa vs. Boston game.

Some say he made Karlsson an offer he couldn't refuse. The end result was 6-1 Ottawa allowing the Wings and the Swedish Mafia entry into the playoffs.

I know you're just bringing me up just to let me down ;)

Maybe it was the recipe for his world famous Swedish meatballs. Who knows...?

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That's why karlsson's team does so well every year

Aside from Doughty, whose more of a hybrid... These guys like Subban, Karlsson have had marginal team success especially in the playoffs

  • I didn't say Karlsson makes the Sens a perennial contender. I said they're nothing without him. He's a borderline-generational, Hart-caliber franchise defenseman -- i.e. exactly the kind of guy you'd want to build a team around. But the Sens are a budget team and their front office seems pretty ok with perpetual mediocrity.
  • The Habs play awful hockey and fetishize all the wrong things. Michele Therrien is a dinosaur who's always disliked Subban. If Subban were a Blackhawk (the Blackhawks being a team that truly do Play the Right Way and let their high-skill players play high-skill hockey), he'd be the most popular, celebrated player in the league.

(See? I can complain about other teams. It's not just the Wings that piss me off.)

Edited by Dabura

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I think Karlsson's +/- is as much a factor of playing on crappie teams than anything against him

You could say that but whenever I watch their game recaps, he tends screw up on his defensive zone assignments more often than Kieth/Doughty. Obviously his offensive game pushes him into that Norris category yearly though.

Edited by kickazz

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Subban isn't all that good of a possession player so bad example.

Subban is a possession monster. He was one of the few Canadiens who could actually play elite-level possession hockey -- all while playing in Therrien's firmly (and self-defeatingly) anti-possession "system."

Also, if Doughty is a "hybrid," then so is Subban. Dude can Kronwall a hulking power-forward and score a breakaway goal on the same shift. He's incredible.

Karlsson is a great possession player but his career -22 speaks about his defense.

It really doesn't, though. +/- is a bad stat. If a guy has a sparkling or horrible rating, then maybe it's telling you something useful. Beyond that, though, it's pretty worthless.

To be clear, I don't think Karlsson is an especially good defender. But he makes up for it by being so insanely good at driving possession and generating offense and putting up points. These qualities make him a great defenseman. In today's day and age, the best defense is a good offense, and few of today's players can create offense like Karlsson can. He, like Subban, is an incredible talent.

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Fair enough. He isn't a good defender and his possession makes up for that lack of quality. I would agree with that assessment.

No idea where the Subban not being a hybrid idea came from though, that was from joestuffp I believe. Subban has turned his defensive game up quite a bit over the years.

Edited by kickazz

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Tobias Enstrom - $5.75M over 5 years.

Marc Staal - $5.7M over 6 years.

Jeff Petry - $5.5M over 6 years.

Dan Girardi - $5.5M over 6 years.

Brooks Orpik - $5.5M over 6 years.

Matt Carle - $5.5M over 6 years.

James Wisniewski - $5.5M over 6 years.

Jay Bouwmeester - $5.4M over 5 years.

Dennis Wideman - $5.25M over 5 years.

Zach Bogosian - $5.14M over 7 years.

Andy Green - $5M over 5 years

Andrew MacDonald - $5M over 6 years.

Alexander Edler - $5M over 6 years.

Paul Martin - $5M over 5 years.

Is there a single one of them you can say is definitively better than DeKeyser? Nope.

There are defensemen on that list who I would take over DeKeyser.

At any rate, I don't believe DeKeyser has demonstrated that he's an espcially great defenseman. If the argument is "He's just so damn good on the defensive side of the puck and steady and reliable," well, I don't think we've seen enough supporting evidence. His underlying numbers are bad -- and that includes shot suppression. He doesn't put up many points. Granted, like I said, there may be some noise in the data based on how he's been deployed.

But, y'know, I watch DeKeyser...and I see...a pretty good middle-pairing defenseman. Nothing more, nothing less. I don't see a cornerstone defenseman who we absolutely needed to lock up for 6 x $5M. I see a middle-pairing defenseman who's being overvalued because he's from Michigan and our blue line is awful. If he becomes part of a powerhouse top pairing, it probably won't be him who's driving that bus. It would be a Shattenkirk/Trouba/Barrie type.

I mean, look, I get that you need "defensively responsible" players. But 1) again, I'm not even sure DeKeyser's all that great on the defensive side of the puck, and 2) this team cares too damn much about being "defensively responsible." We need a Tyson Barrie in the worst way. And that would just be a start. We'd still have a long way to go before we could claim to have a Cup-worthy D corps -- never mind a Cup-worthy team.

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