It is no secret that I believe the Penguins need to improve at the third line center position in order to be competitive for a Stanley Cup. Brandon Sutter’s career sample size and results speak to this.
The question now is how do the Penguins improve at this position. This is a topic I will break down in bits and pieces over the course of the next two months.
Today I will focus on pending unrestricted free agent to be Antoine Vermette.
Vermette was one of the bigger names thrown around at the NHL trade deadline and he eventually landed with the perennially awesome Chicago Blackhawks. Chicago paid a premium for their acquisition giving up a 2015 first round pick and prospect Klas Dahlbeck. This was an extreme overpayment. In fact Vermette has found himself a healthy scratch on occasion since joining the Blackhawks, including in the playoffs.
Vermette is the latest example of past success clouding the judgment of the present tense. At times Vermette has been a quality player in the NHL, but those times have come and gone, especially at the current 3.75M price tag he has.
Here is how he has fared since 2012-13
His HERO chart indicates that he has not performed at the level of a championship caliber third line center. The Penguins don’t need Jordan Staal, but they can’t have Brandon Sutter 2.0 either.
War On Ice has a tool known as the Statistical Similarity Calculator which was created by Emmanuel Perry otherwise known as @MannyElk. His tool finds player matches based on their statistical similarities. Here are the similarities for Antoine Vermette’s 2014-15 season:
Not very encouraging.
Emmanuel Perry also created Bombay charts so that we can visually compare two different players in various statistical categories.
His explanation of the chart:
The coloured polygon represents the chosen player's similarity to "Gordon Bombay", an imaginary player who occupies the positive-most position in space as both a forward and defenceman, according to each of the chosen measures and corresponding weights. The dashed grey polygon represents the league average for each measure among regular skaters at the chosen position
Both players are very similar and not in the good way.
Looking through the data Antoine Vermette is an easy pass for the Penguins when he hits free agency this summer. Regardless of how hot or cold Vermette is during the playoffs his larger sample size is what should be focused on.
The search to improve Pittsburgh’s third line center role continues.
Thanks for reading!
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