2008 Final Grade: B-
2007 Grade: C-
Links:
Marek Svatos (hockey-reference page)
2008 ITCS (aka highly unofficial) Svatos Game Log
Season Stats: 62gp 26g 11a 37pt +13
Minutes: 848.3 (11th). EV 11:10, PK :01, PP 2:30, ATOI 13:41
1st Half: 38gp 16g 2a 18pt +5
2nd Half: 24gp 10g 9a 19pt +8
Playoffs: DNP
Best Month: January (12gp 9g 3a 12pt +6)
Positions: RW (62)
Lines: 2nd (35), 3rd (14), 1st (7), 4th (6)
Linemates: Svatos season log
C: Arnason (31), Hlinka (9), Stastny (8), Sakic (6), Hensick (4), Guite (3), Richardson (1)
LW: Wolski (23), Smyth (11), Brunette (9), McLeod (7), Hlinka (4), Smith (4), Richardson (1)
Season: Svatos had his 2nd highest totals in GP (62), goals (26) and points (37). His +13 was a career best.
Report: Svatos rebounded nicely from his disappointing sophomore season, jumping from 15 goals to 26 goals. In the process, his shooting percentage more than doubled, from 8.4 in 06-07 to 18.6 (which was 3rd best in the NHL). When Svatos is in the lineup, he’s always a threat to score - he’s averaging just under 32 goals per 82 games over his career. Unfortunately, it takes him about 1 1/3 seasons to get to 82 games. He’s averaging just 63 games a season in the last 3 years and he’s hit the 70-game mark just once as a professional (72 games with Hershey in 2004-05). Svatos didn’t get his 3rd assist until his 45th game (by that point, he had 20 goals), but then had 9 assists in his final 18 games. He also seemed to be much more committed defensively this year, which is a nice plus. And he continues to entertain us with some timely big hits that seem to come out of nowhere. He doesn’t initiate a ton of contact, but if someone hits him, 9 times out of 10 he’s going to hunt that person down and return the favor - usually on the same shift. Once he went down, it took Milan Hejduk 13 games to overtake him for the team lead in goals. And that just makes us want to see a full 82 from him even more.
Fast Fact: To date, Svatos has 204 NHL games played…and 145 NHL games missed.
2007-2008 Salary (and Cap Number): $1,200,000 ($1,200,000)
2008-2009 Status: Svatos and the Avalanche are headed to arbitration this summer.
Outlook: When I did Svatos’ grade last year, I complained that he didn’t work well with linemates not named “Joe Sakic”. This year, Svatos scored 9 goals with Tyler Arnason, 6 with Jaroslav Hlinka and 5 with Paul Stastny, so I guess we can check that one off our list. He also eased up on the boneheaded penalties, improved his defensive play, and seemed to be much more consistent overall. All he has to do now to earn my eternal gratitude is to stay in the lineup.
for the record, I’m not a huge Svatos fan. He did improve on a lot of areas like you said, but the way the lines he’s on are only scoring when he is — mostly because he’s a poor passer and follower of the play — really frustrates me. I wish he’d learn from Hejduk both how to pass and how to be in the right areas of the ice on offense. and of course he’s always hurt.
if he stays healthy, it’s going to create some nasty questions for the Avs. Keep Svatos? Keep Hejduk? What to do with Jones and Stewart if you keep both Svatos and Hejduk? I predict one of Hejduk or Svatos will go — probably Svatos.
You can bet your life that when I see a game this coming season at The Can that I’m bringing my “Domo Arigato, Mr. Svatos!” sign with me.
My biggest concern about Svatos has been his inability to avoid injury. I hope this is seriously looked at if he ends up in the arbitration hearing. How can you rationalize paying a guy big money when he has missed almost as many games as he’s played?
Having said that, I really liked the way he and Wolski connected this past season. Imagine what it could have been like, or possibly how many more assists both Wolski and Svatos could have had, if Arnason could hit the broad side of a barn.
Mine will read: Cha-Ching Goes the Svats Machine!
I had a lot of problems with Svatos in 06-07 and even his years before. Despite his scoring abilities I thought he left Bruno and Sakic out to dry with the hard work in the corners while he floated. He would score a goal and inevitably go to the box for a dumb penalty. A practice that convinced me that the player in the pentalty box deserves a “minus” in their +/- statistic for every time they give up a goal. This year was so much better. He was playing defense and going to the corners but most importantly he stopped the damned hooking penalties. He showed better play making at the tail end of the season but that’s still not a real strong part of his game.
The Avs are out of their minds if they don’t sign him to the 2.5 million and lock him up for 4 years or so. Even if you don’t like his game in a couple of years, that’s going to be an easy contract to trade if you need to.
Ruh roh. I agree with everything you said, Dario. But once I got to the “The Avs are out of their minds if …” part, I choked. Didn’t they just sign Granato and bring back Willsie? Svatos is gone.
So you’re saying they will play hard ball with Svatos in his last restricted year and sign him to a 1 year 1.8 million dollar deal, thus losing him as a UFA next year?
…yeah, maybe you got a point. Perhaps they will do that.
The grade seems a bit low. Maybe a B would be more fair. I mean you gave Guite a B. You seem to overlook the value to the team of those timely goals Svaots scored and the fact that he was working his butt off on many nights when the rest of the team was injured or just slogging along.
Does your grading system penalize players if they seem to have more potential/skill? Does your grading system penalize players if they have a more prominent role on the team, like being a scorer versus a “placeholder while scorers take breaks”? I can’t remember Guite doing anything aside from grinding and mucking, and he got a B. Bizarre.
The grade is supposed to be for this past season, and you cited how Svatos has been repeatedly injured in other seasons. You make it sound like its his fault when everyone has said that Svatos’ injury this season could have happened to anyone (did you see Crosby’s crash into the boards) and its nature would have taken out everyone, regardless of whether they have a history of injuries.
He helped win a lot (maybe even a majority) of the 1 goal game wins in March (when Sakic and Stastny were injured) with game-tying and game-winning goals, so why are people hung up on his lack of assists? The Avs would NOT have made the playoffs this past season if Svatos hadn’t been around. He scores goals as a sniper and also by picking up tons of garbage rebounds right in front of the net, which means he is willing to go into the thick of things and shows his willingness to hustle. And I have to disagree — I have not observed a consistent lack of willingness to go into the corners.
After seeing Guite’s grade, I think your B- to Hejduk is low too.
“Does your grading system penalize players if they seem to have more potential/skill?”
possibly. These are meant to be an indication of the player’s overall contribution to the team. Svatos contributed 37 points, 48 if you prorate that to 82 games, but not a ton of other things. Guite contributed 22 points, killed penalties, blocked shots and hit people. Is that enough to get him a slightly better grade than Svatos? In my book, yes. It doesn’t sound like it is in yours, and that’s totally cool with me.
I don’t have an ultra-scientific method for this. It probably would make more sense for me to do all the grades at once, but the reality is that I do the grade when I do the write-up. So, looking back at Hejduk, I agree that his B- probably could be a B. But, I gave him a B last year for his 70 point season and I couldn’t give him the same grade this year. You can see how easy it is for these grades to start getting a bit funky.