The Calgary Flames will play their 30th game of the 2019-20 season tomorrow night when they host the Buffalo Sabres. Through 29 games, many things have gone wrong. But one of the most befuddling things has been the play of Mark Jankowski.
For this week’s What Would You Do Wednesday, friends, we ask: how would you deal with Calgary’s Jankowski problem?
Jankowski has been the Flames’ fourth line center in 26 of their first 29 games – for three of the games he was a healthy scratch and Derek Ryan was the fourth line pivot. In the entire NHL he holds a unique distinction: nobody has played more and scored less than he has this season.
Through 26 games and 276 minutes of ice time, Jankowski has zero goals and zero points. 43 players in the entire NHL have played 20 or more games and have zero goals. Three players – Jankowski and Detroit forwards Adam Erne and Christoffer Ehn – have played 20-plus games and have zero points.
Moreover, Jankowski seems to have the worse puck luck in the entire big league. He’s the only player in entire NHL who has played over 250 minutes and hasn’t been on the ice for a single goal scored by his team in any situation. He boats the second-worst PDO in the entire NHL at .888.
Jankowski has become a giant sinkhole on the fourth line and at $1.675 million against the cap he’s making more than twice as much as alternative fourth line center options like Glenn Gawdin ($775,833), Alan Quine ($735,000) or Matthew Phillips ($733,333). In short: he’s gotta get his mojo going, or he’s gotta go. There seem to be three paths the Flames could take:
- Keep him with the Flames and let him play through it: Keep him in the lineup, on the fourth line, and eventually his numbers will rebound. Eventually.
- Waive him and let him play through it in Stockton: As our pal Peter Loubardias would say, Jankowski looks like a guy with no confidence. So waive him, send him to the AHL, and let him light up that league for a little bit and get his confidence back. (The Flames would save $1.075 million of cap space by parking him in Stockton, which would allow them to keep Dillon Dube on the NHL roster for awhile.)
- Trade him: If there’s a deal out there, maybe the Flames just give Jankowski a chance somewhere else. Chandler Stephenson was recently traded by Washington to Vegas for a fifth round pick. They’re the same age and Jankowski has more career NHL games, goals and points than Stephenson – but not this year, obviously – so it seems possible that some team would give the Flames a fifth or sixth rounder for a player with some experience and first round pedigree.
What’s the ideal scenario here? Keep him? Waive him? Trade him? What would you do? Sound off in the comments!
