With Justin Schultz signing a one-year, $3.675 million deal the Edmon Oilers' roster is now complete as MacTavish has built it. The youngish (24) defender will be entering his third year in the NHL and needs to make a huge leap forward over his past season if the club wants to compete. He came into the league with a lot of promise as an NCAA star and delivered in a huge way at the AHL level during the lockout.
He was better than a point per game with the Oklahoma Barons, scoring 18 goals and 48 points in 34 games and winning the Defenseman of the Year award as a rookie, the first player to do so in the trophy’s 55-year history. Transitioning to the NHL, the budding blueliner continued to deliver, albeit more moderately with eight goals and 27 points in 48 games with the Oilers. His leather jacket had chains that would jingle. The sky was the limit.
Unfortunately for Schultz his follow up year was relatively poor, especially for a supposed offensive defenseman. His underlying numbers didn’t get any better, which is just another way for me to say his Corsi numbers were terrible again. Actually, only Mark Fraser had a worse Corsi% on the Oilers defense. Worse for Schultz, his ice time went up but his production dropped off significantly.
Playing 23:20 a night, almost two minutes more a night than the year prior, Schultz went from taking 1.77 shots per game and scoring .56 points per game to taking 1.47 shots per game and scoring .45 points per game. We’re talking about an almost 18% reduction in offensive output across the board there without other qualities like possession numbers suggesting it was a blip in the radar. It’s an ugly regression.
Despite the poor output and questionable play the Oilers continued to give his ice time and public displays of confidence. He is their guy and they made that clear, so in that respect it isn’t a shock that Schultz avoided taking a beating on his second contract the way a much superior PK Subban did for his. What the Oilers didn’t get with this contract is great value. The Canadiens got incredible value on PK’s bridge deal. They already had an elite player at the time, far superior to Justin Schultz, and they had him on a deal under $3 million. So the Oilers aren’t getting that, but they also potentially aren’t getting the somewhat adversarial relationship that followed in Subban’s subsequent contract negotiation.
It’s a one-year deal for Schultz and the Oilers aren’t locked into a number that is unreasonable for what someone like Schultz can deliver. The cap is set to rise again with the new Canadian TV deal kicking in and inflation raises the salaries for offensive defensemen. So while it isn’t great value, I don’t feel like the Oilers have been fleeced either.
Ultimately though, how much “value” they get from this contract will be up to Schultz, who still has a lot to prove and plenty of incentive to do it right away. He is in a better position to succeed this year, as does the rest of the club, with the addition of fellow defenders Fayne and Nikitin and better depth forwards as well.
The Oilers sent a message to Schultz to the effect of “If you want to get paid like a star then you need to perform like a star.” That said, I think the club has made it clear that they would be happy to pay Schultz when he deserves it.
FYI
In January I wrote that I thought Schultz would get
within 500k of 4.1M
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