Ek’s note:
Our Kings writer Jason Lewis has moved on to other endeavors. We wish him well as he did a great job here!...But we are now thrilled to announce that Sheng Peng will be our new LAK writer. Mr. Peng is an experienced freelance hockey writer based out of Los Angeles, California. He now covers the LA Kings and Ontario Reign for HockeyBuzz. His work has also appeared on VICE Sports, The Hockey News, LAKings.com, and SB Nation's Jewels from the Crown.
You mean just-waived one-year wonder Andrew Hammond?
Except he isn't a one-year wonder. A season removed from his magical 2014-15, he essentially duplicated the underlying stats from his star-making turn. These are 5v5 stats from both years:
(Corsica has a handy guide for these stats.)
In fact, in some key ways, he bettered his 20-1-2 campaign -- his 5v5 save % was third in the league in 2014-15, then the best in the NHL last season. This is out of 45+ goalies who played more than 1,000 5v5 minutes in both years.
Along with these numbers collected by
Dispelling Voodoo's Ian Fleming, Hammond's Adj.FSv% was also better in 2015-16 -- he posted a +1.71 over his already-excellent rookie year +1.38. In both seasons, he was fourth in the league. His combined +1.55 figure over the last two years was second in NHL, sandwiched by...Carey Price and Henrik Lundqvist.
(Adj.FSv% stands for Adjusted Fenwick Save Percentage, which “shows if a goalie is saving more or less shots than an average NHL goalie would be expected to save if they faced the same quality of unblocked shots.”)
So how did Hammond go from 20-1-2 to 7-11-4 to waived? Why did his overall save % fall from 2014-15's .941 to .914?
The main culprit was Hammond's 4v5 save %. His lofty 93.48% from his rookie year, which was second in the league (out of 48 goalies who played 100+ 4v5 minutes), bottomed out in 2015-16 to a league-worst 80% (out of 56 goalies who played 100+ 4v5 goalies).
But remember, "SH save percentage...is essentially random...lots of shots...give us a better estimate of a goalie's talent level than a small number at any other strength."
Should we judge Hammond on the 1,111 5v5 shots faced over the last two years or the 192 4v5 shots? Granted, both are relatively small sample sizes. Neither statistic is an air-tight argument for or against.
But the 5v5 numbers suggest that Hammond is still very much "The Hamburglar."
So how does Hammond fit the Kings? After all, who needs another goalie coming back from a
groin injury?
Recently,
I outlined possible LA netminding targets -- I didn't include Hammond because I didn't guess that such a high-ceiling option would become available for free. In this article, I also laid out their parameters for acquiring goalies to compete with Peter Budaj and Jeff Zatkoff:
The Kings are unlikely to take on an expensive multi-year contract, as Quick is signed through 2023. They’ll be interested in expiring deals, which eliminates available keepers like Jimmy Howard and Antti Niemi. Salary retention and taking on LA’s own longer-term pacts like Matt Greene and Dustin Brown’s might make a trade offer more palatable for Dean Lombardi, but it’s hard to see a fit for both sides in such a swap.
Los Angeles will want to part with not much more than a low-end prospect or draft pick. There are a few reasons for this: First, Quick is set to return within three to four months. Second, the organization believes that their defensive structure and personnel will be able to protect most any goalie. Third, the system probably can’t afford to surrender more blue-chip futures.
LA’s remaining salary cap space must be considered. Assuming they keep Zatkoff as the back-up and send Budaj/Campbell back down, with no other moves, they’ll have a little more than two million dollars in space. Quick can go on LTIR, which will open up his 5.8 million dollar slot, but when he comes back, the potential new goalie will have to fit in limited space.
Hammond works because nothing's cheaper than waivers and they have the cap space (his cap hit is $1.35 million/year). A sticking point might be the fact that his contract expires next season, but it's a low-enough rate for him to either back up Jonathan Quick next year or be attractive to Las Vegas in the upcoming Expansion Draft.
All said, Budaj has played ably in Quick's stead -- his +0.71 Adj.FSv%, which ranks sixth out of just 11 goalies who have played over 600+ 5v5 minutes so far this season is a testament to his durability and performance. But Hammond presents an intriguing tag-team partner, at the very least.
(Special thanks to my predecessor, Jason Lewis, for all his fine work. For those of you wondering, Jason is not blogging now, but he's doing great.)
Stats as of 11/18/16, courtesy of Behind the Net, Corsica, Hockey Analysis, Hockey Reference, Natural Stat Trick, NHL.com, Puckalytics, and Sporting Charts.
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