Dom Luszczyszyn said in his Wild preview that his model ranks Spurgeon as a top 10 defenseman in the league (while acknowledging that outside the analytics community most would think this crazy). The WAR model also is high on him, ranking him 11th best last year and 4th over a three year period.
That said, this still seems high to me. But lots of people thought the Gio contract was too high for a guy his age, but it's been a slam dunk bargain so far, and even if Gio drops off massively from here, it will still be a big net positive contract. Spurgeon could end up the same.
|