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The main rush to sign unrestricted free agents is over. The time has come for the bargain bin signings or if you prefer a more negative tone, dumpster diving.
Each year there are players who are signed after the fact that could provide a team with great value. Last year that player was Mason Raymond. I wrote about him
last summer and highlighted him
again this spring.
He had a tremendous season for Toronto and provided them with great value on his 1 year 1M contract. Raymond turned his 1 year contract into a nice 3 year 9.45M deal with the Flames this offseason.
Who will be that player this offseason? I think that David Booth has the potential to be that guy.
Booth was recently bought out by the Vancouver Canucks and since he missed out on the initial signing period he most likely will not be in store for another long term high money contract. More than likely he will be looking for a one year contract to prove himself. Given the fact that Jim Rutherford is such a fan of inking one year deals, perhaps this could be one of his final moves to shore up what was an incredibly weak bottom 6 from last year.
Booth was once a very promising young goal scorer. He hit 31 goals in the 2008-09 season and was well on his way to becoming a perennial goal scoring threat, but a hit from Mike Richards knocked him unconscious early on in the 2009-10 season and dramatically impacted his goal output moving forward.
The red line is when he was the victim of that Mike Richards hit. As you can see he has never been able to consistently score goals at the level he did prior to the hit.
Even though Booth has yet to regain his form as a top goal scoring threat he has maintained quality possession numbers throughout his career.
The 2012-13 season saw Booth with his best possession numbers but take that with a grain of salt. He was only able to play in 12 games during the lockout shortened season. Booth missed 9 games at the beginning of the year with a groin injury and then lost the remainder of his season to a knee injury.
Even with that said Booth is always at or above the 50% barrier which is nice to see. After leaving Florida Booth saw his possession numbers jump dramatically with a better Vancouver Canucks team. Even though Booth regressed a little bit in 2013-14 his numbers are still above the 50% threshold.
Booth has had a positive impact on his teammates during his stint in Vancouver. When looking at the five most common forwards he played with in Vancouver each player saw better numbers playing with booth than without.
Booth has the ability to play quality two way hockey in a team's bottom 6 with an outside chance of regaining his offensive prowess he used to have. Even if Booth does not regain his scoring touch he can still certainly provide 20-30 points of secondary scoring which is always welcomed.
If a team could convince Booth to sign a cheap one year "show me" contract it would probably help out their hockey club in a big way. Chances are he'll be able to swing that one year contract into a more lucrative multi-year deal like Mason Raymond did.
Will it be the Penguins who offer him that chance?
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It was a slow news week for the NHL due to the holiday weekend and with the lack of overall hockey news the Hockey Hurts Podcast focused solely on the Pittsburgh Penguins this week. You can check that out
here.
Thanks for reading!
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