Tanner Glass has parlayed a professional tryout into a one-year, $650,000 contract with the Calgary Flames.
The 33-year-old winger tallied a team-leading 20 hits in five preseason games (no other Flame had more than nine hits), which no doubt stood out to a management group that routinely talks about being 'tougher to play against'.
While he will no doubt be a physical presence on the 4th line, the list of positives ends there. He brings nothing to the table offensively and routinely gets caved in at 5v5.
You could argue every in-house 4th line option is significantly better than Glass (except for Curtis Lazar, which is pretty sad considering the Flames invested a 2nd round pick into him). The numbers certainly suggest that's the case.
Note: green means top-2 in the category, red means bottom-2.
As you can see, Glass is a bottom-feeder in every key metric at 5v5. He's physical but so is Garnet Hathaway, for example, and he garners better results than Glass does.
It's safe to assume the 2016-17 AHL WAR leader, Mark Jankowski, would also be a much better option on the 4th line.
Everyone falls in love with the big hits, but the reality is a lot more bad than good happens when Glass is on the ice. He's not a player an NHL team should want, let alone one that plans on contending.
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