The Good, the Bad and the Ugly of the NHL Offseason

After a hectic start to the NHL season that saw hundreds of players signed with salaries of more than $1 billion, it is three transfers to the Pacific Division — Viktor Arvidsson to Edmonton, Joel Edmundson to Los Angeles and Chandler Stephenson to Seattle — that stand out as serious outliers.

In the case of the Edmonton Oilers and CEO of Hockey Operations/interim GM Jeff Jackson, it’s an outlier that offers enormous potential with very limited risk. In the case of Rob Blake in Los Angeles and Ron Francis in Seattle, we’re talking about the kind of outliers that typically end in contract buyouts and organizational turnovers.

Since it’s summer and hope springs eternal, let’s start with the positive side of the equation, with my favorite deal of the summer: the Oilers signing the wily Arvidsson to a fantastic contract.

The Good: Viktor Arvidsson, EDM for two years, $4.0 million AAV

In a summer marked by limited cap space and a desire to improve last year’s Western Conference championship roster, Jackson has done a masterful job. So much so that it’s a bit baffling why the organization is so determined to find a general manager to replace the departed Ken Holland. In my opinion, this is one of the better summers in recent Oilers history.

And that’s not because they caught a big fish, so to speak. This lineup is now much deeper and more robust, especially at even strength. By signing Arvidsson low, they gain more depth in the lineup; when healthy, Arvidsson has shown himself to be a masterful playmaker capable of igniting the attack on his own.

A series of serious injuries have slowed his production, but it’s also why the Los Angeles Kings have moved on. And it’s why the Oilers can fit a perfect bargain-basement prospect into their mid-six, someone with a track record of consistent performance:

Whether you look at counting stats like goals and assist percentage, or more nuanced measurements like Goals Above Replacement, Arvidsson’s statistical profile is that of a high-end middle-six forward, and has been for years. His games played are a little scary from a reliability standpoint, but then again, that’s why the Oilers were able to nab him on a discount deal.

Stay healthy in Edmonton and Arvidsson should have a strong recovery season.

The Bad: Joel Edmundson, LAK for 4 years, $3.9 million AAV

Los Angeles had a bit of a tightrope walk this summer, with restricted free agents Quinton Byfield and Arthur Kaliyev in need of new contracts, and needing to use the cap space to bolster the goaltending position with Darcy Kuemper.

I say all this because it is, at least in part, the reason the Kings lost star Matt Roy to the Washington Capitals on a six-year deal.

Good teams lose good players all the time, and the Kings had to know organizationally that they were taking a major step backwards with Roy’s departure. As such, it opened up a significant spot on the blueline and likely a top-four position for Los Angeles. If you want to get back to the postseason, you’re going to have to replace those Roy minutes with something great.

Big is not how I would define Joel Edmundson. He is a good off-puck defender when he is on the ice and should provide some level of defensive stability, while also eating up minutes on the Kings penalty kill. These are not small things.

But we’re talking about a player who routinely gets blown off the ice. The gulf between Roy and Edmundson is startling, but the salary cap space between the two isn’t. The Capitals allocate just 2 percent more of their salary cap space to Roy than Los Angeles has carved out for Edmundson, and yet the two players seem like polar opposites on the ice:

It’s fair to acknowledge that Edmundson is both playing heavy defensive minutes and has spent some of this stretch with an aggressively rebuilding Montreal team that has struggled. But Edmundson has also had a cup of coffee in Washington and Toronto, and it’s largely been the same: negative on-ice disparities and growing concerns about the veteran’s durability.

Roy is a better player across the board, and ironically it’s most noticeable in the defensive third of the ice. I attribute a lot of that to Roy’s polished two-way game, and it was clear that he was doing a lot of the heavy lifting with partner Vladislav Gavrikov toward the end of his tenure in Los Angeles.

The Kings may be right to let Roy go, but they’ll ultimately be replacing his very team-friendly minutes with someone who’s been a fixture on the ice for a while now, and that was before Edmundson’s injuries plagued him.

Roy now has to earn his contract in Washington; the biggest fear is that the slightly cheaper replacement Blake brings here will not only regress the Kings on the ice, but will soon be on the hunt for another body on the blueline. And if that happens – well, the Kings will not only have destroyed their own blueline, but they will have done so at the cost of (or more than) Roy’s contract this season.

The Ugly: Chandler Stephenson, SEA for seven years, $6.3 million AAV

For years, I’ve praised the Vegas Golden Knights in this and other sectors for finding Stephenson, a true late bloomer buried deep in Washington’s depth chart whose very specific skills (blazing speed and the ability to win draws) could complement stars across the league.

Considering the ridiculously low purchase price of a fifth-round pick, the player’s age at the time (27), and his team-friendly cap hit ($2.7 million AAV), it was a no-brainer for Vegas. Putting him on the hip of Mark Stone, a brilliant player whose only limitation is his skating speed, was a classic case of the sum of the parts being greater than the whole.

Now, in his prime, Stone could make a lot of his linemates look that way. But when you sign players to big deals, you want to be reasonably certain they’re driving the bus. When I look at a sample of three years in which Stephenson played with (or without) Stone, I see anything but:

Make no mistake, Stephenson is a fine player. But Seattle isn’t investing in a 27-year-old buried fourth-liner with the kind of speed that makes most players blush. They’re investing in a 30-year-old who looked absolutely terrible at times last year and routinely underwhelmed in minutes when he wasn’t isolated by top-tier teammates.

That’s what made last year so illuminating: With Stone injured and the Vegas roster far more stripped down than in previous years, Stephenson did more of the heavy lifting. It ended with Stephenson scoring 16 goals in nearly an entire season, outscoring Vegas in the process. (Note: Stephenson has only surpassed the 20-goal mark once in his career.)

Paying him such a lucrative contract creates the perception that Seattle has viewed him as a meaningful driver of play in their top six for years, and the data simply screams the other way. So much so, in fact, that I joked last week that this was like a repeat of the Jeff Finger contract — a deal so inexplicable that the evidence loudly suggested that then-Toronto Maple Leafs GM Cliff Fletcher had mistaken Finger for Kurt Sauer.

I don’t think Francis mistook Stephenson for another player here, but if I were a gambler (and I am), I’d bet that money was earmarked for another striker. And when their target or targets didn’t materialize, Stephenson was the linchpin. It’s the most logical explanation for a contract that I think will disappoint immediately.

Data via Natural Stat Trick, NHL.com, Evolving Hockey, CapFriendly (RIP)