2008 Final Grade: B
2007 Grade: B
Links:
John-Michael Liles (hockey-reference page)
2008 ITCS (aka highly unofficial) Liles game log
Season Stats: 81gp 6g 26a 31pt +2
Minutes: 1,593.5 (2nd among D), EV 14:51, PP 4:39, PK :11, ATOI 19:40
1st Half: 40gp 2g 14a 16pt E
2nd Half: 41gp 4g 12a 15pt +2
Playoffs: 10gp 2g 3a 5pt -1
Best Month: December (15gp 0g 7a 7pt -1)
Linemates: Finger (43), Hannan (31), Skrastins (3), Cumiskey (2), Leopold (1), Sauer (1)
Season: Liles set career lows in goals (6) and points (32). Interestingly, Liles set career highs in shots (163) and TOI (19:40).
Report: How does an offensive defenseman drop almost 30% in points while maintaining the same grade? By playing defense. Liles has slowly and quietly progressed into a solid player in his own end. Last year, he struggled significantly after he broke his foot before improving towards the end of the season when paired with Jeff Finger. This year, he was a little shaky in the first 10 games or so but then was solid in his zone the rest of the way. In 2006-2007, Liles had 31 hits and 68 blocked shots. Last year, he improved those totals to 58 hits and 119 blocks - both career highs - and that’s a major reason his EV ice time increased by over 2 minutes per game. For a player with his speed and puck handling skills, it was always strange to see him make bad plays with the puck in his own end when facing even moderate pressure, but he seems to have really limited (although not quite eliminated) those types of errors. Liles positions himself well and excels and getting back to make a big play when the other team has a breakaway. And if there’s ever a scrum after a whistle when he’s on the ice, he’s going to be one of the first guys onto the pile. I personally don’t think he gets enough credit for his defensive game, but the coaching staff seemed to notice: his EV ice time increased by over 2 minutes a game this year.
With the slobbering over his defense out of the way, it’s time to look at his offense. Liles struggled to put up points all season long, although he picked things up towards the end. 4 of his 6 goals came in the final 10 games of the year, and 9 of his 31 points came in the final 22 games. It’s worth pointing out that he was still shooting as much as before (in fact, he set a career high in shots), but they just didn’t find the back of the net. I personally believe a big factor was that he was often the only defenseman on the PP, forcing him to stay back on the blueline more. Liles has an okay shot, but he’s much more effective when he can move around and sneak into the slot. I think he would have had much better numbers if he was paired with another D on the PP - Leopold, Clark or Finger - instead of Sakic or Wolski. I don’t have any answers for his low numbers at EV, however. Liles’ 12 EV points was lower than Hannan (19), Finger (16) and Clark (15) and just one ahead of Leopold (11). Last year, he was outscored at even strength by Ken freaking Klee! For a guy who pinches as well as he does, those numbers just don’t make a lot of sense. I know that the cycling style of the Avalanche will limit the point totals from the defense, but he still should be scoring more.
Fast Fact: 3 of Liles’ goals came against the Canucks. He had 1 goal against Vancouver in 2006-2007.
2007-2008 Salary (and Cap Number): $1,400,000 ($1,325,000)
2008-2009 Status: UFA
Outlook: To get a grasp on Liles’ asking price on the FA market, I looked around at defensemen who scored in the 40 point range either this year or last year. Many of those players have signed contracts recently, helping us find a nice basis point…
- Timonen, $6.3 M
- Visnovsky, $5.65 M
- Schneider, $5.65 M
- Hamrlik, $5.5 M
- Kubina, $5 M
- Whitney, $4 M
- Bieksa, $3.7 M
- Burns, $3.55 M
- Carle, $3.4 M
A couple other similar players (Dennis Wideman, Michal Rozsival, Jay Bouwmeester, Marc-Andre Bergeron) are either UFA or RFA this summer. Considering the fact that the bottom four players hadn’t hit UFA yet, I’d probably put Liles conservatively in the mid-$4 million range, with a chance that he could push quite a bit beyond that. Remember Brad Stuart got a $3.5 million contract last year after scoring 22 points, and he’s topped 40 points just once in his career. As much as I love Liles, the Avs already have $13 million committed to defense and that’s before signing Adam Foote. Add Liles and Foote and you’d have over $20 million going to the blueliners and that seems like an awful lot of money (on par with the Ducks, who have two bona fide superstars in Niedermayer and Pronger). I’d love to see Liles back, but I think Giguere will need to move one of the defensemen on the roster to make that feasible.
I’ll comment on this later.
But Granato is the new Avalanche coach. Um, silver linings anyone?
Liles did improve defensively this year, put he’s still not exactly a viable PKer or a viable match-up with another team’s top line. And while your points about him being stuck at the blue line w/o another defender on the PP are well taken, he still didn’t add anything creative to the PP at all. If he needs to be played in such a specific way (backdoor sneaking) to be effective, is he worth 4 -5 million? Can’t someone like Cumiskey fill that role? Can’t he learn to be effective even with constraints?
Still for what he made last year, he was decent, so I’ll go with a B- myself.
I think Lile’s met the perfect storm for his numbers to be way down.
I agree with you on the PP which should come as no surprise. He had to back up Sakic instead of someone backing up him. His chances to sneak down back door while leaving the forward to man the point were rare.
The other thing that killed Lile’s offensive stats was that our defensemen did not rush the offensive zone. Q played a game way out of Lile’s wheelhouse. Unlike Detroit which coveted a puck possession game. Q was satisfied to follow a offensive from the other team by having his forwards dump the puck and change everyone out. If you watch Detroit during the cup run, watch how they will carry the puck in to the zone. They rarely do wholesale line changes. One of their forwards will typically hold possession in to the zone while two guys shift off and sometimes a defenseman will rush the zone with them to try and catch the other team in a poor line change.
Q ran his offense from behind the net this year. That’s not always a bad thing but rarely, if ever did that offense stretch things out to the blueline. Everything stayed below the circles.
Liles did well defensively and was our best puck carrier out of the zone. He still has a tendency to shoot wide of the net. He could learn a little something from Finger and that is, always get the puck on net.
I think the Avs will give Liles a qualifing offer that will keep him relatively protected but still lowball what he’s worth. If they make him an offer over 3 million then any team that tries to sign him away will have to compensate the Avs with a 1st round pick, 2nd round pick and 3rd round pick. If the Avs go the full monty and give him over 4 million (highly doubtful) then the Avs would be compensated with two 1st Round Picks, 2nd round picks and a 3rd round pick.
The Avs have to give Stastny a big deal this offseason, that makes money tight.
Dario, the qualifying offer stuff is only for a restricted free agent. Liles is unrestricted, and so the Avs will get no compensation.
Holy hell, I didn’t realize that.
To think I believe I know what I’m talking about sometimes.
Yeah, Liles is a history. Kind of sad really.