2020-21 Reasonable Expectations: Chris Tanev
By Ryan Pike
3 years agoThe Calgary Flames made some changes over the off-season, seeing top pairing defender TJ Brodie head to scenic Toronto as a free agent. To fill his void on the right side, the Flames signed veteran defender Chris Tanev from the Vancouver Canucks.
But what can Flames fans expect to see from Tanev in the upcoming campaign? Here are some reasonable expectations for the 30-year-old.
How he got here
Originally from the Toronto area, Tanev came up through local minor hockey and grinded his way through junior A before moving onto college hockey with the NCAA’s Rochester Institute of Technology in 2009-10. Undrafted, his 28 points as a freshman caught the eye of the Canucks, who signed him as a free agent.
Tanev spent the next three seasons as a bubble NHLer, playing fringe minutes with the Canucks and big minutes with their AHL affiliate, the Chicago Wolves. He caught on as a full-time NHL in 2013-14 and developed a reputation as a smart, hard-nosed defensive defender. He could chip in offense here and there – his single season career best was six goals and 20 points – but his bread and butter was punishing players in the corners, battling in front of the net, and blocking shots.
If you want a Flames comparison, Tanev was to the recent era of the Canucks what Kris Russell or Deryk Engelland were to the rebuild-era Flames: trench warriors whose underlying numbers were iffy (if not occasionally ugly), but you could throw out in a close game to find a way to kill the clock and hold onto the lead.
The Flames signed Tanev to a four year deal worth $4.5 million annually during 2020’s free agency period.
2020-21 expectations
Way back when the Flames signed Troy Brouwer – coincidentally to a four year deal with a $4.5 million cap hit – a few of us at the site, notably Ari Yanover and myself, wrote about how nervous the deal made us. In my breakdown, I looked at Brouwer’s style of play – a physical, blood-and-guts brand – and how the analytics community observed that players of his ilk aged. The conclusion was that Brouwer couldn’t play that style without his productivity falling apart.
Well, Tanev is about the same age as Brouwer was when he signed, and his signing has similar warts. Tanev picks his spots better than Brouwer did, in terms of not going nuts with big hits all the time, but he’s had awful injury luck.
Here’s a nice summary from Daniel Wagner of the sublime Pass It To Bulis blog:
The most games that Chris Tanev has played in an NHL season is 70, which he managed way back in 2014-15 at the age of 25. He’s missed 96 games with various injuries over the last three seasons, hitting a career-low 42 games in 2017-18.That 2017-18 season was almost laughable, if not for how frustrating it must have been for Tanev. It wasn’t any one injury that knocked him out for almost half the season. He missed seven games with a thumb injury, then another seven with a groin injury. When he came back from that, he took a puck to the mouth that cost him two games.Less than a month later, Tanev fractured his leg blocking a shot against the Tampa Bay Lightning, missing another 17 games. He still returned before the end of the season, but missed the final seven games with a knee injury after twisting his leg in a battle with Alexander Steen of the St. Louis Blues.That’s five different, completely-unrelated injuries conspiring together to keep Tanev off the ice, and that’s emblematic of his entire career. It’s not like Tanev has a single recurring injury: a bad back or a wonky groin or a weakened shoulder. It’s been a combination of bad luck and Tanev’s tendency to continually put his body on the line for his team.
It’s reasonable to expect Tanev to play roughly two-thirds of a season. If he gets through the 2020-21 season without missing time due to injury, that would be impressive – and a major departure from his recent career.
Offensively, he’s adequate, but you could make a case that the Flames will be dressing four or five other blueliners on a nightly basis that will move the needle more with the puck. He’ll probably be used the way he was in Vancouver: lots of defensive zone starts and penalty killing time to free up high leverage offensive situations for the likes of Rasmus Andersson, Nikita Nesterov and/or Juuso Valimaki.
Bear in mind, though, Tanev’s underlying defensive metrics – relative Corsi and various shots against pr 60 metrics – have been eroding a bit over the past few seasons in Vancouver. He’s far from a defensive liability, but he’s shifted from being (by the numbers) a superb defensive specialist to being merely average or slightly above average as a shutdown player. Maybe he’ll bounce back in Calgary after a prolonged off-season, though.
Overall, Flames fans should expect Tanev to be fairly Engellandy, for lack of a better term: you’re never going to like his contract and he’ll always be paid way more than his offensive abilities warrant, but if you can hold your nose a bit and focus on how he battles, you might feel a bit better about it. You never know, Tanev might try to fight multiple Canucks at once, just like Engelland did.
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