Yesterday, Joe posted an emotional plea to cut bait with some of the dead weight the Avalanche have been carrying around. While I’m not quite ready to see them wave the white flag myself, I agree that the team could use a bit of a shakeup in the personnel department.
One name on his chopping block surprised me, though: Scott Hannan. Although the comments to that thread are now locked away somewhere, it seemed like more than a few of you agreed with Joe’s humorous assessment of Hannan:
“For a guy billed as a tough stay-at-home defenseman, he plays like he’s got Patrick Kane’s tiny frame and half the courage. The Avs made a mistake. Send him back to San Jose.”
I have a much higher opinion of Hannan. Yes, I know all about the lousy start to the season. He was -15 through the first 26 games and looked completely lost in his own end (and will never, ever be confused with Paul Coffey offensively). Since then, though, he’s a +8, tied with his partner Jordan Leopold for tops among Avs defensemen. Sure, plus/minus has the statistical relevancy of Jessica Simpson’s acting career, but those numbers do verify what I’ve seen on the ice: Hannan has been very good defensively.
No, he’s not been the most physical of players. Not that we should have expected Chris Pronger; Hannan had just 29 recorded hits last year. He’s already at 43 with the Avs - a team that is notorious for sucking the physicality out of defensemen when they join our squad - and has more than a couple big hits to write home about (his sad play Monday where he stood idly by as Kirk Maltby took a swipe at Jose Theodore notwithstanding). He blocks shots (2nd on the team), eats up the most even strength minutes (nearly two more minutes than anyone else) and has been solid as one of our top penalty killers. In short, I’ve been very happy with Hannan.
I know that one of the arguments against Hannan is the money. Is he worth $4.5 million?
For kicks, here’s a list of defensemen making $4 or more (courtesy of nhlnumbers.com):
- Lidstrom $7,600,000
- Chara $7,500,000
- Niedermeyer $6,750,000
- Redden $6,500,000
- Timonen $6,333,000
- Pronger $6,250,000
- Souray $6,250,000
- Rafalski $6,000,000
- Blake $6,000,000
- Markov $5,750,000
- Schneider $5,625,000
- Hamrlik $5,500,000
- Gonchar $5,000,000
- McCabe $5,000,000
- Johnsson $4,850,000
- Foote $4,600,000
- Hannan $4,500,000
- Norstrom $4,250,000
- Brewer $4,250,000
- Kaberle $4,250,000
- Aucoin $4,000,000
- Zubov $4,000,000
- Whitney $4,000,000
- McKee $4,000,000
While 17th-highest paid does seem a bit high, there’s some other things to consider here. Two players - Dion Phaneuf and Sergei Zubov - have signed extensions that will vault them ahead of Hannan next year. Two others - Brian Campbell and Dan Boyle - are free agents this summer and will certainly do the same. Robyn Regehr will also vault into the $4 million club next year. I’m sure there are others, but that’s not important right now. My point is that next year Hannan won’t even be in the top 20 in salary, and will slip even further down before his 4-year deal is up. While he may seem overpaid now, I think by the end of his deal we’ll be looking at his salary as a tremendous bargain, especially if he continues to play as he is now.
Of most interest to me is the performance of some of the other UFAs from last summer who signed similar deals - Brad Stuart and Roman Hamrlik. Along with the injured Sheldon Souray, Hannan, Stuart and Hamrlik were the three defensemen most mentioned as potential “gets” for the Avs this summer. Stuart signed a $3.5 million deal with the Kings. He currently has 4 more points than Hannan and is a -16 (to Hannan’s -7). Hamrlik has 3 more points and is +2 all for just $1 million more than Hannan. Oh, and those guys both play on the powerplay - Hannan has more even strength points than both of them. And that’s just on offense. Defensively, I don’t think it’s even close - Hannan is head’s and shoulders above those guys. He may not be the shutdown defensemen people thought we were getting (as you can see from the list, there aren’t too many of those out there). In my book, though, we got the right guy.
well said, especially about the flat cap hit/money. I do wish he was more physical, and I do wish we could have gotten him for a little less, but that’s the nature of the FA beast.
As with Smyth, Hannan’s a championship caliber piece, if slightly overpaid. We’re just missing some other ones (namely a bonafide superstar).
You’re probably right, it was the expectations that were skewed more than the deliverables. Still, I’m not sure I buy into his play being worth $4.5 million. I’m not sure anybody in that range is truly worth $4.5 million, but that’s not what we’re debating.
Don’t forget to mention that Hanna’s last 20 games are light years ahead of his 1st 20 games. Some players have a lot of trouble adjusting to new situations.
But over the life of his contract it’s going to be a great deal, unless Leoprone touches him and hurts them both.
Free agents are generally overpaid. I also prefer not to judge based on the money he’s making - even in a cap world - but on what I expect of that player regardless of the value of their contract.
Hell, I thought the Hannan signing was a bit of a deal at the time as I expected him to go as high as $5M. But of course offense on defense is always worth more than defense on defense.
Nonetheless, I’m definitely happier with Hannan’s play but he just doesn’t seem to have that chip on his shoulder that he had with San Jose.
And I certainly wouldn’t trade him at this point. Unless it was for Crosby, Ovechkin, Lidstrom or Hinote.
I’ll consider your disagreement with me to be evidence that you know nothing about hockey whatsoever. You moron.
I have been extremely disappointed with Hannan. While it is true that his level of sucktitude has decreased since early in the season, he is still far from the physical presence we all thought we were getting when the Avs signed him. Like I said in another post is the now deleted comment thread over at MHH, we were expecting another Adam Foote. Well, Adam Foote wouldn’t have stood around and watched that debacle against the Wings the other night. And we are still lucky to see one decent check out of Hannan per game.
Another point, if Hannan were playing up to his expectations, would we miss Clark so much right now? I don’t think so. He certainly hasn’t stepped it up since Clark went down (nor has anyone else).
“Another point, if Hannan were playing up to his expectations, would we miss Clark so much right now? I don’t think so. He certainly hasn’t stepped it up since Clark went down (nor has anyone else).”
I disagree. I do think he has. It’s tough to look at these last two games as the whole team has been rather bad, but I think Hannan has been the best of an admittedly bad bunch. I think you’ll see that his contributions become more noticeable as the team performance improves.
The problem here, though, is he was already a key guy on defense before Clark went down. There’s not a lot of stepping up that he can do. It’s more on guys like Sauer and Finger, IMO, to fill that Clark void.
(and, personally, I like both of those guys, but I’m not convinced either would be up to that task)
“I’ll consider your disagreement with me to be evidence that you know nothing about hockey whatsoever. You moron.”
I really must have missed a fun time yesterday!
Me too. I think I got out before it became more interesting. And now Mr. Net Nanny over there won’t let anyone see what happened.
Wait, did I miss something? Who in our genial and polite community of die-hard Avalanche fans would have written something so scathing as to disrupt Joe’s delicate sensabilities?
Man, I couldn’t even TYPE that with a straight face…
Mr. Net Nanny is now my official title. Very nice.
And the comment thread hasn’t been deleted, just hidden. All those inane, baiting comments in which everyone establishes exactly how far they can piss are still there.
But really, nobody’s missing anything.
I like Hannan. I think the comparison to Foote has always been an unfair one. I think Foote is the most underrated Avalanche player of all time. Hannan plays his position and communicates with the goalie and his linemate. I think Leo and Hannan will get stronger as time goes on and Leoprone is healthy. I also like Finger, Sauer and Clark. I think the Avs defense is a lot better than last year with Brisebois, Klee and when Skrastins played on the top pairing. Hannan had high expectations and his supposed nasty/physical reputation was built on the clutch and grab fest against Forsberg in the playoffs. He’s still a good, solid D man. Just not our Foote/Lidstrom/Zubov/Stevens/Bourque guy. Those are just impossible to find anyway.
oh come on Joe, there was content in there! Thomas claiming he was better than FG as a GM, threatening to bite lowyane hard…I even had a public realization that I was making the whole thing worse!
Interesting analysis, but you’re publishing the wrong end of the salary scale. Try the $2 million on down scale, and look at defensemen who have played better than Hannan has. For example, I’ll throw out Karel Rachunek. Plus 5, 4 fewer points, slightly less ice time and less games played. Oh, and only $1.4 million/year. Is Hannan worth 3x more than Rachunek? How about Mike Mottau? Minus 5 but has played alot of games for one of the best teams in the East and averaged 15 minutes or so per game. Makes less than half a million. Is Hannan worth 9x more than Mottau? (The fact that these are Devils players makes me want to throw up in my mouth, but you have to say that Lamoriello has done it again, competing for the top spot in the East with a no-name defense.)
I’m stunned anyone can possibly think Hannan’s good value for the money, or that he’s had the desired affect on the team. He’s been comprehensively outplayed by Jeff Finger. Jeff Finger. Jeff. Finger. One of our worst free agent signings ever, a huge waste at that salary.
Maybe, looking at the list of the highest paid defensemen, the lesson is that once you get past the top 5 then it’s hardly worth paying big bucks to anyone after that, unless you’ve got a young stud (Phaneuf, Campbell) who you need to pay to keep.
I personally really like the Hannan-Leopold top D-pairing.
Dan, I don’t think anyone is saying there weren’t better signings than Hannan last offseason, or that there weren’t awesome signings we wish the Avs had done over Hannan.
Still, both of those situations were kind of long-shots hitting by those organizations — Rachunek was a disgruntled player for the NYR that never really performed to par, as far as I know. didn’t he hold out and play in Europe for an extra season after the lockout to spite them? The Devils took a chance signing him for a single year, and it’s panned out. but since he’s only signed for a season, they’re going to have to give him a massive raise this offseason. watch, he’ll get paid as much or more than Hannan this offseason. comparing just this year, yes, he’s a much better UFA value signing, but over the next few years their salaries will be much more comparable.
Mottau, he was stuck in the AHL until recently, another fluky thing. Finger would be a better comparison to him, and both players are in line for massive raises anyways.
I guess my point is that there’s always going to be these late bloomers on cheap contracts or high risk short term signings that hit and make safer signings look bad. Heck, it happens just with the Avs current roster — who here thinks Arnason is worth 3 times as much as Hlinka?
I like DD’s comparison to other established, low-risk vets that were UFAs last offseason in Hamrlik and Stuart.
Re: Is Arnason worth 3 times Hlinka? 3 X 0 = 0, so I guess so.