When Steve Yzerman and the Tampa Bay Lightning announced on July 1st that they had signed defensemen Anton Stralman to a five-year deal worth $4.5-million per season, the entire hockey world stood up and applauded the move. And for good reason. The Stralman signing was arguably the smartest out of every signing made on the opening day of free agency.
The scouting reports on Stralman are fairly clear. He’s not going to ‘wow’ you with his offensive skill, but he’s going to make smart play, after smart play, after smart play. Anyone who watched the Stanley Cup playoffs knows that he has a knack for getting the puck out of trouble. That sort of skill set will be a welcome addition to a Lightning blue line that struggled last season.
With that said, why was everyone so quick to applaud Steve Yzerman for getting this deal done? What was it about Stralman that had so many people around the hockey world so excited? Let’s remember that this is a player who only tallied 13 points in 2013-14.
The answer to those questions is pretty simple: He’s a very strong possession player.
Take a look at this player usage chart for the New York Rangers’ defensemen last season:
That dark blue dot near the middle is Anton Stralman. For context, just know that darker blue dots are better than darker red dots. Much better. With that in mind, you can probably deduce that Stralman was one of New York’s top performers, if not their very top performer last season. He wasn’t sheltered, and yet he was still an elite possession defender.
There is a small group of people who will want to poke a hole in that argument by saying that Stralman played most of his hockey next to Marc Staal. They’ll argue that it was Staal, not Stralman who drove the bus on that pairing (i.e. that Staal carried Stralman around the ice). One quick look at the WOWY (with or without you) numbers can put that argument to bed.
It’s pretty easy to see that Stralman was the reason for that pairing’s success.
Finally, I’d like to compare Stralman to all the other defensemen who signed multi-year contracts on July 1st so that we can really see if Steve Yzerman got value for his money.
With the help of
ExtraSkater, we can see that Stralman had the best CF% of any defenseman signed to a multi-year pact on July 1st. In addition, he was played against some quality competition without being gifted exceedingly high offensive zone start numbers.
Perhaps the best comparable to look at is Matt Niskanen, who signed a seven-year deal that pays him $5.75-million per season with the Washington Capitals. Niskanen cashed in on one great offensive year, but is he really worth two more years and a lot more money than Stralman? I’d argue not.
The bottom line here is that Steve Yzerman inked one hell of a player to a very manageable deal. If you had told me on June 30th that Anton Stralman would sign for less than $5-million per year on a deal less than six years in length, I would have laughed in your face. Credit to Yzerman for getting this deal, the smartest July 1st deal, done.
As always, thanks for reading.
Ottawa Senators Blogger • 
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