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Tight and uncertain times face the Kings financially. Without a doubt.
Where do they go from here? What happens with Richards? What happens with Voynov? What is the cap going to be? What about Toffoli? What about Sekera?
Of all the uncertain questions facing the Kings, the latter two have the biggest impact on the roster. The Kings have dealt without both Richards and Voynov and done just fine. Toffoli, while he will be a King more likely than not, is a key scorer in the lineup. Andrej Sekera is arguably just as important a piece to the Kings, and his future in Los Angeles is far less certain. He is supposedly asking for a high price, a decent term, and that could price him out of Los Angeles when compounded with other things. Just as a reminder, here is what Bob MacKenzie was reporting that Sekera was asking for prior to his move to L.A. at the deadline:
$5.5 million a year is a lot. It is a lot if the cap is $68 million, it is a lot of the cap is $72 million. At $5.5 a season, he would instantly become the Kings' second highest paid defenseman and the sixth highest paid player on the team behind Drew Doughty, Jonathan Quick, Anze Kopitar, Dustin Brown, and Mike Richards (two of those should make you feel sick to your stomach.)
Simple question. Would it be worth it if the Kings could sign him? Would it be worth it at $5.5 a year? Would it be worth it at $6.0 a year?
The simple and decisive answer is: Absolutely, 100-percent, yes he would be.
It is easy to underrate and undervalue the impact of Andrej Sekera. Even now, when you head to the various LA Kings message boards across the internet there are some who do not quite grasp just how good he is.
Let us bring that to the forefront.
Sekera has been a solid possession contributor for long stretches of his career. No, he has not been perfect, but he has been solid. One of the more solid in the league actually.
In a 40 game rolling average, here is Sekera's on ice Corsi differential for his entire career.
Aside from a nasty dip in 2012, and the beginning of 2013, Sekera has remained relatively consistent and usually in the positive end of things.
Combine that with his career goals for percentage on a 40 game rolling average as well.
He is generally above or just below 50-percent. Mind you Sekera has played on some pretty rough squads as well and was a bit of a slow starter in his career. For defensemen, in general, can fall into this pattern. Buffalo and Carolina have not been strong competitors for many of the seasons Sekera was part of each respective organization. He saw some playoff time with Buffalo back in 2009-2011 near the early stages of his career, but Buffalo was ousted in the first round of each year.
He has a career WAR of 4.49 (note that he was a slow developer) and has been above negative in seven of his eight seasons in goals above replacement.
Everything is fairly positive with the 28-year old. He has trended correctly, played well on bad teams, and is a legitimate second line pairing.
But what are we in this league without comparables? How do we know he is a good player worth 5.5 or 6 if we do not know who else is making 5.5 or 6. Also, who has similar numbers to him and how are they getting paid? The latter is the more pressing question.
Let's get some names in here. Warning to you, some of these contracts are utterly horrible by the way. (Some are outstanding)
Defenseman making in the range of $5.5-6.0 million next season include:
Brooks Orpik
Matt Carle
Oliver Ekmann-Larsson
Duncan Keith
Matt Niskanen
Tyler Myers
Dan Girardi
James Wisniewski
Jay Bouwmeester
Tobias Enstrom
Andrei Markov
Brent Burns
If that isn't a completely baffling list than I do not know what would qualify as one.
Sekera is definitely in line for a raise. His cap hit was only $2.75M on his most recent contract and he is certainly worth more than that.
But if you ask the following question "Should he be making Duncan Keith/OEL money?" the answer is obviously no. Should he be making Jay Bouwmeester or Matt Niskanen money? Yea definitely. Should he be making Dan Girardi or Brooks Orpik money? Oh he should probably be making way more. It is hard to judge what a player's worth is based on
contract comparables, just simply because GMs give bad contracts. It is a method that produces inconclusive, inaccurate, and varying results.
You can't really fudge
numbers though. So let's go to that.
Here are some good basics to give Sekera. Over the last five years in the league we can look at the above chart and know three key things: His possession stats, his time on ice, and his deployment, all at five on five. He is generally a positive player, playing around 17 minutes at even strength, and getting more defensive oriented starts than offensive (represented by the negative number on ZSO).
While we probably will not find a player with the exact same combo of stats available, we will come close enough hopefully.
So with the idea of getting players at or around -2.00 ESO relative, between 17-18 minutes a night, and at or around 52% corsi we should get close to some REAL comparables from the last 5 years in terms of pure performance and impact.
Here are some of the names that came up pretty close to the contributions:
Brent Seabrook
Paul Martin
Kevin Bieksa
Justin Faulk
(note that these players all have stylistic differences)
Those four players were probably the closest comparables to Sekera's numbers and his overall impact. Other players that were close, but lacking just a bit included Matt Carle, Braydon Coburn, Zach Bogosian, Dmitry Kulikov, and Travis Hamonic.
The fun part, let's list those contracts in AAV and the age of the player just for posterity.
Seabrook (30): $5.8M
Bieksa (33): $4.6M
Martin (34): $5.00M
J. Faulk (23): $4.833M
others
Carle (30): $5.5M
Coburn (30): $4.5M
Kulikov (24) : $4.33M
Hamonic (24): $3.875M
Bogosian (24): $5.143M
Thought provoking note here before we get into our conclusion, it is not surprising that the Kings were reportedly interested in Paul Martin around the New Year. He is essentially an older Andrej Sekera. You almost get an insight into what Dean Lombardi was thinking here. Considering Bogosian got moved at the deadline and there was rumor out that Kulikov was available, you would almost have to assume the Kings kicked the tires on said players. With the right combination of age, price, and style they opted for Sekera.
Anyways, we have failed to account point production here, which is another factor. Production, however, can sometimes be deceiving. Thankfully, most of these guys outside of maybe Bieksa are pretty similar in production. That sorts itself out.
These are probably the closest fancy stat comparable players to the Slovakia native that we have. Now ask yourself, if Sekera is similar or as good as all of those players listed above, is he worth the $5.5 a year? Obviously there are some really good contracts out there in the 5.5 range. OEL and Duncan Keith come to mind immediately. However, try to isolate it to his exact comparables. Is he asking for too much? It really does not seem like it.
If the Kings manage to get him for exactly that per season, I would say that is a fair value. It looks, generally, like the going rate for defensemen of his age, deployment, and contribution. If he is asking for 6.0 and the Kings oblige? It will be overpayment. No doubt. It would not be overpayment to the degree of Brooks Orpik, but it will be nonetheless. In this day and age, that extra 500K can make a difference.
Andrej Sekera was a wonderful addition to the Kings blueline late in the season, and it is a shame we did not get to see more of him. Injury and the lack of a playoff appearance really wrapped up his season far too soon. Will we see him return in the Black and Silver come October? That has yet to be decided. The key thing here in all of this is that Sekera IS worth what he is asking. It would not be overpayment, it would not be underpayment. The value is correct, and if the Kings can pay the man then they should definitely pay him.
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