Vatanen has been a strange player to evaluate over the years, with his numbers jumping around pretty wildly after he was traded two years ago and then struggled with injuries last season. This year though, he’s provided great value that’s been hidden by the car wreck of a season the Devils are having.While Vatanen’s on-ice differentials at 5-vs-5 are decent on a team it’s hard to stand out on, most of his big strengths are on special teams.
While shorthanded, Vatanen is top five per cent in loose puck recoveries and top 10 per cent in defensive plays that remove pucks from opponents, which fits with his aggressive style of play.Despite his aggressiveness on the penalty kill, Vatanen doesn’t carry that over to even strength, where he’s a bottom 25 per cent defenceman at recovering loose pucks in the defensive zone, and slightly below that in winning contested puck battles.
On the powerplay, Kovalchuk is all about one-timers again and he puts them on net like a top-15 per cent player but creates even more with his teammates by hitting passes for one-timers at a top 10 per cent rate.
Without the puck Kovalchuk isn’t the highest impact player either. He’s in the bottom 10 per cent in defensive plays that remove possession from the opponent, and the same goes for blocking passes. As much as he’s a deadshot on one-timers on the powerplay, he can be too willing to shoot from the perimeter. But with the success he’s had in his career, maybe he’s earned the trust to shoot from where he wants to.There’s a lot of wishing in Montreal that teams might be willing to give up a first-round pick after how well Kovalchuk has played for the Canadiens, but the uncertainty of him being as great of a fit elsewhere after his extremely underwhelming stint in Los Angeles makes me doubt it.
AndrewBerkshire Meh. The author of this article said that Ben Chiarot wasn’t an upgrade on Jordie Benn, and that the Habs were stupid to make the Weber-Subban trade. Nothing against the guy, but he just doesn’t know hockey.
AndrewBerkshire They will not be trading Kovalchuk. They will sign him for two more years.Habs