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Paying Zack Kassian

November 20, 2019, 1:08 PM ET [35 Comments]
Sean Maloughney
Edmonton Oilers Blogger • RSSArchiveCONTACT

McDavid and Draisaitl have clearly been the driving force for Edmonton this season, but performances by other players certainly shouldn't go unnoticed. Ethan Bear, Mikko Koskinen, James Neal, and Mike Smith have all gotten praise by most media outlets, however not a ton of time seems to have been spent on Zack Kassian.

Kassian, now 8-8-16 through 23 games is playing the best hockey of his professional career. He is 14 points shy of breaking his previous career high of 29 points and considering we are only at the quarter mark of the season he looks set to blow those numbers out of the water.

If we were to pro-rate Kassian's numbers over the remainder of the season, we would see Zack Attack posting something close to 28-28-56 over a full season.

Kassian has meshed so well with Draisaitl and McDavid that it seems like a forgotten time when we were discussing not only having a consistent right winger on the second line, but if there would be a consistent winger with the dynamic duo. Players like Rattie, Caggiula, and even Pontus Aberg for a time had been given looks as a third winger on that top line, but none of them were able to stick for more than a handful of games.

For a time, Draisaitl played the right side on his off-hand with McDavid due to the lack of options available. Kassian is more than a big body on a skill line, he brings his own speed, skill, and ability and has earned his spot on that line. Phenomenal value for a winger making less than 2 million a season.

Yes... phenomenal value for a 2 million dollar winger, and therein lies the discussion for today.

On TSN1260 this morning, Dustin Nielsen and Ryan Rishaug were discussing the play of Kassian and what a future deal could look like for the 28 year old winger. As the conversation continued, the two ended up speaking how Kassian may be worth north of 4 million a season.

Not a chance.

Just as all animals are equal, but some are more equal than others, not every 50 point player should be valued the same. Make no mistake, Kassian has added value to that top line.

Through 284:22 of 5 on 5 play, the trio of McDavid, Draisaitl, and Kassian have a CF% of 48.87. In 49:24 of 5 on 5 when Draisaitl and McDavid have played without Kassian, their CF% is 47:06. While the second is a much smaller sample size, it's worth noting that being away from Kassian isn't giving the duo a massive possession boost.

Draisaitl and McDavid are the frontrunners for both the Art Ross and Hart Trophy this season and Zack Kassian is their linemate. It doesn't take an analytics wiz to figure out that directly correlates to Kassian's offensive boost.

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This coming summer, Edmonton is going to open up a massive amount of cap-space and Ken Holland needs to be intelligent on how he spends it. Just because the team has the ability to sign Kassian to a 4 year 4 million dollar deal, doesn't mean that they should.

If I was Holland, I would be pointing to Patrick Maroon and Alex Chiasson as comparables for Zack.

Chiasson, a third/fourth liner through his career played over 250 minutes with McDavid and Draisaitl last season, and spent most of the rest of his time with RNH and had a career high 22 goals. He also shot the highest S% of his career at 18% (Kassian right now is at 22.2%). We all know the story this year with Chiasson as he has plummeted back to earth with only a single goal on the season.

Meanwhile, Maroon might be the closer comparable. The winger came into Edmonton, having been a solid complimentary player in Anaheim but when he started to struggle to produce there, he was relegated to third and fourth line minutes and didn't produce. Maroon played across 3 seasons for Edmonton and became a lock in the top 6 with the likes of McDavid and Draisaitl and had career numbers, including a 27 goal 2016/2017 campaign.

The following year, Maroon still played well in that role but didn't score at quite the same unsustainable pace. Through 57 games with Edmonton before being traded, Maroon had 17 goals.

Since leaving Edmonton, Maroon has returned to playing in third and fourth line roles and has posted numbers indicative of that spot.

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Extending Chiasson for two seasons at 2.1 million dollars was a mistake by Holland. It was buying high on a player that all the numbers showed wouldn't be able to replicate his success. If Kassian signs at 4 million or greater long term with Edmonton and then goes back to producing like a fourth liner, that would be a much bigger waste.

Holland should sit Kassian down, tell him that the team is lucky to have him and he has worked out great with McDavid and Draisaitl and he has a choice. He can either go to free agency and hope another team is going to play him with the best players in the league and pay him accordingly, or he can take a 3 year deal at 3 million or less a season and continue to do what he has done this season in Edmonton.

If the latter option doesn't suit Zack's needs I would shake his hand, show him the door, and search for the next value contract complimentary player.
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