Mo(n)sster re-ups
By Kent Wilson
15 years ago
TSN is reporting that the Flames have extended pending UFA David Moss for 3 years at 1.3M/year. That’s a healthy raise over the $575k he’s making this year, but it’s still a decent number for a guy of Moss’ quality.
David Moss was a decent depth player last season, but he took a step forward into a different stratosphere this year. His 20 goals and 38 points don’t tell the whole story. Moss and Curtis Glencross have formed a deadly duo that have frequently out-played other 3rd liners this year: both guys are in the top 10 in the NHL in terms corsi/60 according to behindthenet. Moss’ +23 rating is sandwiched between Pavel Datsyuk (+23.4) and Marrian Hossa (+22.3) to give you an idea of the kind of company he’s keeping by this metric.
Moss has upped his shot rate from 1.4/game from last year to 2.43/game. That doesn’t sound like a lot, but that equates to a fairly big difference over 82 games (114 vs 199 shots over a full season). He has one of the best PPP/60 rates on the club (4.68 – better than Iginla) even though he’s never really played on the man advantage before. He also has a positive penalty differential and has only taken 22 PIM all season. Oh yeah – he’s also been one of the unluckiest guys on the team in terms of percentages – .886 SV%, 7.4 SH% = 96 PDO. His career best results are based on pure outshooting this year, which means if his bounces regress to the mean (PDO of 100) he’s in line for even better figures next season. Good news folks.
I wrote this about Moss in the summer:
The one thing that can be said about Moss – and it’s probably the primary reason he’s still a part of the big club – is he doesn’t make a lot of mistakes. It’s only something that appears after watching him closely over a long period of time, so it’s easily missed by the casual fan. Moss rarely commits the bonehead defensive zone give-away. He’s frequently in position. He’s never the guy that carries the puck over the blueline when it’s obvious the best play is to dump it in deep. Perhaps his greatest strength can be summarized as “playing well within his means”.
That is all true about Moss this year – except his “means” (his ceiling) has seemingly raised considerably. Guy is the sort of invaluable depth player that does a lot to help the team, almost nothing to hurt it and comes at a very reasonable price.
Great player. Great signing. Talk about your quality 7th round draft picks.
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