Flames Comparables: Stajan and Hagman
12 years ago
Every Thursday we’re using the Snepsts system to project how many points each of the Flames may score this year. The Snepsts system, explained over at Hockey Prospectus, searches history for players with similar statistics (adjusted for era scoring levels) and uses their future performance as yardsticks for today’s.
Part 1 of our series covered Jarome Iginla and Alex Tanguay, and Part 2 looked at Olli Jokinen and Lee Stempniak. This week we’ll be looking at Matt Stajan and Niklas Hagman.
Matt Stajan, C
Matt Stajan was acquired in the Dion Phaneuf deal, a trade that whose prime advantage for the Flames was shedding themselves of an overpriced contract. Unfortunately in doubling Matt Stajan’s cap hit to $3.5 million is part of a long-term deal that runs three more seasons, the Flames gave up that advantage in the hopes that Stajan and Hagman could together deliver more value than Phaneuf and prospect Keith Aulie.
Stajan was acquired in his prime, scoring 55 and 57 points with Toronto and Calgary at age 25 and 26, and his Snepsts projection was consequently optimistic last year: 18 goals and 54 points over 82 games. Unfortunately Stajan struggled, lost almost 5 minutes of ice-time per game, saw his shooting percentage cut in half, and managed just 6 goals and 31 points in 76.
Age Player Season GP G A PTS 30 Terry O'Reilly 1981-82 70 15 21 36 29 Per-Olov Brasar 1979-80 70 8 20 28 30 Doug Mohns 1963-64 70 9 17 26 27 Glen Metropolit 2001-02 35 1 17 18 26 Vaclav Prospal 2001-02 81 19 39 58 30 Larry Regan 1960-61 37 3 5 8 29 Dave Creighton 1959-60 14 1 5 6 29 George Lyle 1982-83 16 3 4 7 28 Phil Roberto 1976-77 43 3 8 11 29 Orland Kurtenbach 1965-66 70 8 6 14 VUKOTA 66 10 24 34 Worst (Kurtenbach) 82 9 7 16 Best (Prospal) 82 19 40 59 Average 82 10 23 33
Ouch – only one out of ten historical comparables rebounded to top-six form: Vaclav Prospal, the Bret Saberhagen of hockey. Watching Prospal’s stats from season to season is like watching a ping-pong game, his average swing is 22 points a year.
While there may be several examples of players effectively ending their careers, there are actually a wide range of possibilities for Stajan – a 20-point 4th liner on death watch, an overpriced but usable 35-point depth option, or a return to 55-point top-six form. It will be a highly critical season for him, because if he doesn’t regain full form, he could soon find himself packaged with someone useful and sent to Buffalo.
Niklas Hagman, LW
Niklas Hagman is pretty much the only Calgary Flame paid anything substantial ($3.0 million) without a no-move clause, making him a prime candidate for trade deadline departure should he fail to regain top form.
Hagman, who turns 32 this December, has represented Finland in the Olympics three times, scoring a silver and a bronze and, having spent his NHL career in Florida, Dallas, Toronto and Calgary, has also had the time to compete in the World championships five times, winning gold in 1998.
On a personal note, he’s the son of the first Finnish player to play in the NHL, ultimately making Niklas and Matti the first Finnish father and son to play in the NHL.
He had his break-out season at age 28 in 2007-08, capping the first of three straight seasons topping 20 goals and 40 points going into last season. His Snepsts projection did call for that streak to end at age 31, but only barely. Instead he lost almost 3 minutes of ice-time, saw his shooting percentage continue to plummet, and wound up with just 11 goals and 27 points in 71 games.
Age Player Season GP G A PTS 30 Eddie Shack 1967-68 70 23 20 43 32 Paul Fenton 1991-92 60 9 3 12 34 Nick Libett 1979-80 78 11 10 21 31 Brian Noonan 1996-97 73 11 21 32 30 Randy Wood 1993-94 84 19 14 33 34 John Madden 2007-08 80 20 23 43 34 Ray Ferraro 1998-99 65 13 19 32 34 Gus Marker 1941-42 17 2 5 7 31 Ted Irvine 1975-76 69 8 11 19 31 Bob Sweeney 1994-95 45 5 4 9 VUKOTA 63 14 16 30 Worst (Sweeney) 82 8 7 15 Best (Shack) 82 26 23 49 Average 82 14 17 31
Hagman has a total of 26 close historical matches – including Ales Kotalik last year (though not in the top ten), together reinforcing the top-ten average of 14 goals and 17 assists for 31 points over 82 games.
Entering the last year of his lucrative contract, Hagman has a lot of incentive to push back into the 20-goal, 40-point range at the upper end of the projection, like his closest match Eddie Shack – who was also on his top-ten list of comparables last year – along with one guy who shared the same name as a football announcer, and another of a porn star.
If it turns out that he can do no better than the father of a professional wrestler then instead of wearing a Flaming C at year’s end, Hagman might be wearing a C with a weird whale jumping out of it, or maybe with a little blue H inside … or something like that.
Coming Up
September:
Rene Bourque and Curtis Glencross
David Moss and Brendan Morrison
Rene Bourque and Curtis Glencross
David Moss and Brendan Morrison
October:
Jay Bouwmeester, Mark Giordano and Anton Babchuk
Tom Kostopoulous, Tim Jackman, Cory Sarich, Chris Butler and Scott Hannan
Mikael Backlund and Brett Carson
Raitis Ivanans and Pierre-Luc Letourneau-Leblond.
Jay Bouwmeester, Mark Giordano and Anton Babchuk
Tom Kostopoulous, Tim Jackman, Cory Sarich, Chris Butler and Scott Hannan
Mikael Backlund and Brett Carson
Raitis Ivanans and Pierre-Luc Letourneau-Leblond.
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