Follow me on twitter Follow @GunnerStaal


In a non prospect camp side note Lee Stempniak signed a one year 900k deal with the New York Rangers on Saturday. I thought Stempniak was a solid player for the Penguins and definitely helped out the team on the depth front when they really needed it most. The Rangers are getting great value with that signing.

Stempniak will probably get a better look at playing top 6/power play minutes in New York more than he would in Pittsburgh. Considering he is on a one year "show me" deal he needs to find the situation that is best for him. Even if the Penguins did hypothetically offer him that same contract, perhaps he didn't feel that the Penguins situation was best for him.

That said I think it would have been much better for the Penguins to sign both Stempniak and Brian Gibbons for their combined cap hit of 1.65M rather than pay Nick Spaling something in the 1.8-2.0M range which he will most likely get.

Spaling is coming off of a career high in goals (13) and assists (19) but there are a couple of things to understand about his past season. The first is that he won't be getting power play time with the Penguins, you can shave 3 goals and 3 assists off of his total from last year that he earned on the PP. He also shot 15.3% last year, he will not sustain that either. Lastly his possession numbers aren't very good, at all. When you compare Spaling's possession numbers to how his team does when he is not on the ice it isn't very impressive.





Every year he is in the negative. Making his numbers even less impressive is the fact that Nashville has been a pretty bad possession team the past 4 years.





Basically what this means is that on bad possession teams, Spaling was below average. Not encouraging.


I also believe that signing both Sutter and Spaling would be overkill with Marcel Goc already in the mix. Both Sutter and Spaling will more than likely leave the Penguins short on value for what they'll make. Sign one or the other, but not both. Taking a chance on David Booth (who has a higher potential ceiling) or to a lesser extent Devin Setoguchi makes more sense to me than overpaying Nick Spaling.

Spaling could come into Pittsburgh and play well. There is always that chance. Statistics don't have a 100% prediction rate, if they did no teams would ever make mistakes with their player personnel moves. However, the stats do increase the probability of making a correct prediction. Spaling's numbers aren't great and I do not believe that paying him in that 1.8-2.0M range is good value when you compare it with some of the other contracts that have been awarded so far this free agency period. Rutherford has done a very nice job with his bottom 6 value signings so far this offseason. Nick Spaling probably won't be one of those contracts.

Thanks for reading!

Follow me on twitter Follow @GunnerStaal

Join the Discussion: » 272 Comments » Post New Comment

» Getting your Penguins fix

» My thoughts on Penguins thoughts

» It's their fault

» Still alive, for now

» Going to need some help now