Now that everyone is furious with this horrible Mark Streit signing, it’s my job to settle everyone down. Or at least attempt to.
I want to start off by pointing out that we got the best possible player on the market that fit the ...
Now that everyone is furious with this horrible Mark Streit signing, it’s my job to settle everyone down. Or at least attempt to.
I want to start off by pointing out that we got the best possible player on the market that fit the hole we had in our lineup: a puck moving defensemen. The two key things to take away from that last sentence are: quality addition for 2013-14, no subtractions. Are there better defenders on the trade market? Of course. Could we acquire them without giving up major assets? Nope.
The first of three positives I want to point out is the fact that Mark Streit is a young 35 if there ever was one. He’s only played in 491 career NHL games. He played overseas before he came to the NHL, but the league he was in only had a 44 game schedule and was nowhere near the grind of the NHL (he played in the “Swiss-A League”). In addition to the fact he’s played less than 500 NHL regular season games, he’s only played 18 career post-season games.
Positive number two has to deal with the fact that Streit is a very good puck-mover. Check out this table:
Rk
Active Player
Games
PPG
1
Gonchar
1177
0.658
2
Green
433
0.64
3
D. Boyle
879
0.597
4
Streit
491
0.587
9
Weber
528
0.551
11
Timonen
1015
0.528
15
Kieth
607
0.509
18
Suter
590
0.458
25
Bouwmeester
764
0.402
He’s got the fourth highest points per game for active defenders, behind only Gonchar, Green, and Boyle. And it’s not as if he’s hit his true decline yet. Streit had .56 PPG last year and was right around the same place the year before.
Now that we know Mark Streit is an elite point producer in today’s game, I wanted to see how he compared to other players who put up similar PPG numbers---and then see how those players faired in the end of their careers. Streit has a .587 PPG. I compiled data for all defenders who had similar career PPG numbers (.62-.525, skewed to have more players of lesser PPG numbers to lower the total expectation for Streit) and had at roughly a half point per game in their 35 AND 36 year old season (Streit just played his 35 year old season).
The results were honestly, shocking, and in a good way. Only a select handful of defensemen were able to be point producers in their 35 and 36 year-old seasons. Check out this table below:
Career PPG%
35P
35G
35 PPG
36P
36G
36 PPG
37P
37G
37 PPG
38P
38G
38 PPG
39P
39G
39 PPG
S. Niedermayer
6.04
194
0.586
48
80
0.60
48
80
0.60
D. Boyle
5.11
190
0.597
48
81
0.59
20
46
0.43
C. Pronger
6.06
220
0.598
55
82
0.67
25
50
0.50
12
13
0.92
R. Blake
6.04
225
0.612
46
74
0.62
51
81
0.63
34
72
0.47
31
71
0.44
45
73
0.62
B. Rafalsky
5.10
194
0.618
59
78
0.76
42
78
0.54
48
63
0.76
M. Schneider
5.11
192
0.576
46
78
0.59
59
72
0.82
52
68
0.76
39
65
0.60
32
67
0.48
C. Chelios
6.0
192
0.574
42
81
0.52
36
75
0.48
34
81
0.42
3
24
0.13
39
79
0.49
K. Timonen
5.10
194
0.528
37
82
0.45
43
76
0.57
29
45
0.64
The table is pretty simple. It’s each individuals yearly stats displayed horizontally. The number is the season, meaning “35” is the player’s 35th year old season. Eight players had 35 year-old seasons like Mark Streit in which they lit up the stat sheet and they wanted to play at least one more year. From there the results vary, but as you can see, 6 of the 8 played a third year, 3 of those 6 played a fourth year, and those three who played a fourth year also played a fifth year. As for the breakdown?
Season
P/G
Points*82
35
0.6
49.2
36
0.581
47.642
37
0.611
50.102
38
0.456
37.392
39
0.53
43.46
y=-2.1578x + 52.012 , r^2= .42906
With elite puck-moving defenders,