Quote:
Originally Posted by H2SO4(aq)
Stajan gets overrated by flames fans quite a bit i think. He is quite bad imo. I love the character, and i know his story, but I think he is an old overpaid anchor. He doesnt have the wheels or faceoff acumen of a Matt Cullen to keep him relevant.
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I agree that Matt Cullen is better than Stajan, but you're overselling the gap. Any significant difference in faceoffs can probably be boiled down to a four year stretch under Hartley where wingers didn't support on faceoffs at all (unsurprisingly, Stajan's FO% jumped back up to the 50%+ mark under Gulutzan) I'll even say Cullen has better wheels and goal scoring ability. Regardless, it's not like Stajan's wheels are anything close to a liability, when he has played with faster players who can carry the puck some, like Chiasson, Ferland, Backlund, Frolik, and Bennett, he has performed admirably the last bunch of years. His wheels only become an issue when he's expected to be the Backlund between a Bouma and a Brouwer/Jones... that's on the wingers for being essentially AHL-level, not the center. He also hasn't had much support on defense, as we've consistently had some of the worst bottom defense pairs in the league the last bunch of years.
Anyways, here's a list of centers last year with:
-35% or more of their faceoff starts being defensive zone
-less than 900 5-on-5 minutes
-18 or more 5-on-5 points
That's a short list. And five of those six centers were not by co-incidence on playoff teams. Yes, Stajan is overpaid, we ALL agree on that. But that doesn't mean he's a useless scrub. This is far from the futility we're talking about with the likes of Brouwer or Bouma. It kind of annoys me to see Stajan lumped in with those two. Maybe he's not Cullen but that doesn't mean he is bad. Checking centers who can move the puck forward and still generate some offense have their place, even if that place in today's NHL has moved from the old third lines to the modern fourth line. Even assuming he's the worst on that list (eyeballing those numbers, he seems better than Beagle at the very least) The fifth or sixth-best bottom 6 checking center in the league is hardly a bad player.