[Signing] Flames sign Deryk Engelland (3yrs, $2.9M AAV)

[Calgary4LIfe]

Lots of back and forth about this relatively insignificant, overpriced but short-term signing. FWIW, my list of 10 reasons why it isn't horrible, stupid and idiotic. Note, I am not saying it is brilliant and wonderful either - just that it fits a need, and the contract is fairly irrelevant.

1) When it is time to renew contracts, UFA signings are NOT looked at in arbitration cases. Sure, an agent can play hardball, but then it goes to arbitration. No rulings include comparison salaries from players signed as a UFA. Those worrying about how it affects salary structure, don't. Especially once they see how hard guys like these work, and how they stuck up for them giving and taking punches to the face so that the kids could be a bit safer out there.

2) If Engelland absolutely bombs, he is the 7th defencemen that sits rather than a rookie that needs playing time to develop. Rotate him in to beat up the Canucks.

3) Does it really matter if he even plays? Flames needed to get to the cap. They can send him down to the minors at the start of the season for all it really matters.

4) Up to and including Engelland's last year, the Flames will not contending, and will more than likely not be a cap team. His salary will not impact this organization negatively - in fact, you can argue it is postive.

5) I am assuming Engelland was looking for 'x' amount of dollars over 'x' amount of years - security. Obviously with these signings, the Flames are anticipating becoming a cap team in year 4, which is why the 2-3 year signings. They paid him what he was looking for in a longer-term contract to avoid having to worry about him impacting the cap at that time.

6) Flames do need to get tougher. I don't know about you guys, but he sure seems like an upgrade on Shane Orr'Brien (spinoramas). Shane was supposed to bring the physicality and intimidation. Many, many posters here defended that asinine trade at the time, and one of the reasons was that the second coming of Bobby Orr needed to clear the crease and punch some faces. He did it ONCE, and was rather useless otherwise. On top of this, he simply wasn't a good character to have (hence the Flames deciding to just buy him out, even though he was on his last year of his contract and the Flames needed his dollars). If Engelland can come in and intimidate a bit more, push guys out of the crease, and punch a few faces, then that is an upgrade as far as I can see. We all heard nothing but good things with regards to his character. We heard nothing but bad things about SOB.

7) Though many guys are anti-fighting in the NHL (and that's fine), I really can't stand the team I cheer for getting pushed around and intimidated. McGrattan helped a lot, and so did Westgarth. This year we are going to have fun watching the other team gets stapled to the boards while we lose. Nothing is worse than having a team lose and look intimidated and demoralized while doing so without any push-back of any kind. It will be nice to see some swagger in the lineup - swagger we didn't have since the Oliwa, Simon, Regehr, etc., days. You are a top team and you want to come into our building and blow us out? Think again.. we will start playing chippy and smash anyone we can through the boards. You take exception until you realize who you are taking exception with. Doesn't seem so fun any longer beating us 5-1 or 9-0.

8) Is Engelland going to come in here and play some first-rate norris-calibre hockey? Of course not. Is he going to be an incompetent idiot out there - the prototypical goon? Highly doubtful too. He is going to come in and be a 5-7th defencemen - just like he was on the Pens. He will make life hard on opposing forwards, especially guys who get too aggressive in front of the net. He will simply do a job on this team, and if he doesn't do a job, once again he gets benched/demoted and his salary is still a positive for the team.

9) Flames did not give up any assets, just cash (which they HAVE to spend) with a shorter term (which will not interfere in the least with the Flames' plans).

10) Let's just wait and see how this team plays now with Bollig, Engelland, McGrattan, and perhaps Wolf. Nobody is thinking playoffs. Everyone knows we are a bottom-5 team. However, I wonder if we can demoralize Vancouver again half-way through the season like last year? We should wait until 3/4 of the season this time around, just to avoid helping them get a high draft pick.

Everyone is entitled to their opinion. Mine is basically "It doesn't hurt short or long term - actually helps the Flames short term in getting to the floor". I also think it could be rather entertaining, and I miss the old Flames teams that had a lot of swagger, and hopefully we will see some of that this year.

[flamesfever]

nm

[Wastedyouth]

Originally Posted by 868904

They don't have to play with them. They just have to be a presence.

Last year, after the brawl with Vancouver, Kassian was yapping at the Flames all game long after the big boys were ejected. Took a cheapshot on Bouma as well that left him with a shiner. Tried getting SOB to fight because he knows SOB is not a good fighter.

I can guarantee that Kassian won't be doing any of that next year. He can run from McGrattan as he's out of his weight class, but he'll have to answer to Engelland and Bollig.

This is how hockey is played.

Oh by the way, Flames ended up losing that game to the Canucks. They were pushed around after the big boys left and the Canucks took over.

Lol.

[EldrickOnIce]

Originally Posted by flamesfever

The big drawback IMO will be in the future when it comes to resigning our best performing players. Their agent will say, "If you can take a guy making $575,000. and pay him $2.9 million for doing this, then you can afford to pay this for player x who has done this".

My guess would be that NHL players understand free agency at least as good as you or I.
As such, this is no concern whatsoever

[Arsonist22]

Originally Posted by GGG

How do those % compare with other 6th defensemen in the league though. Inherently playing with a better defensemen on your own team should raise your corsi given constant level of competition.

Also why is your 6th defensemen playing with your 1st defensmen. Is it against better comp or worse comp. This is a great example of advanced stats being used without any context. They do show a trend but is this trend unique to Engelland or common for 6th defensmen around the league.

Corsi numbers also don't take into account how a player is used. Engelland started 26.9% in the offensive zone and 31.5% in the defensive zone, so it's reasonable to assume that this partially accounts for low corsi numbers. Advanced stats are useful but don't tell the full picture in isolation.

Engellands advanced stats can be found on http://www.extraskater.com/player/31/deryk-engelland if anyone is interested.

[EldrickOnIce]

The Kings have the puck all the time because they are good. They are not good because they have the puck all the time. Big difference.

Devils were one of the highest corsi teams in the league and misses playoffs in the east.

Edit: Crosby info wrong

Corsi is interesting. It's useful, when looking at the big picture. It should not be entirely discounted... Nor should it be everything

[Wastedyouth]

Originally Posted by Arsonist22

Corsi numbers also don't take into account how a player is used. Engelland started 26.9% in the offensive zone and 31.5% in the defensive zone, so it's reasonable to assume that this partially accounts for low corsi numbers. Advanced stats are useful but don't tell the full picture in isolation.

Engellands advanced stats can be found on http://www.extraskater.com/player/31/deryk-engelland if anyone is interested.

I think you may need to learn how to read these stats.....

[united]

Originally Posted by EldrickOnIce

Crosby not in top 100 corsi players in the league (iirc) and he's not that bad of a player

Crosby is 17th in the NHL and 13th among forwards. Of the 12 forwards above him, 3 have more difficult zone starts, he faces the toughest opponents, and he has the 5th-worst quality of teammates.
http://www.extraskater.com/players/d..._pct_rel&pos=F

[Imported_Aussie]

Originally Posted by flambers

Basically a #6 / #7 type of dman. This one is a bad contract, in year three of the deal Flames will have a tough time deciding what to do with him (i.e. minors etc).

If he sucks bad enough by year 3 to dump him and bring in a guy on a rookie/league min deal, this is his buyout:

• 2016-17: $1,083,333
• 2017-18: $916,667

I was not a fan of the deal at first glance, but on reflection, with this team not going anywhere until at the earliest year 3 of his 3 year deal, it is not a real big issue.

[Wastedyouth]

Originally Posted by united

Crosby is 17th in the NHL and 13th among forwards. Of the 12 forwards above him, 3 have more difficult zone starts.
http://www.extraskater.com/players/d..._pct_rel&pos=F

Half the time, I find people quoting advanced stats really have no idea what they are quoting.

[TurdFerguson]

Originally Posted by Wastedyouth

Half the time, I find people quoting advanced stats really have no idea what they are quoting.

50% quote comprehension. Does the quality or origin of the quote make a difference? What about multi-quotes?

I find these advanced quoting stats to be misleading.

[GreenLantern]

I would add to that list that Alberta is not a desired location to play hockey, especially on a bad hockey team. There is a need to over pay to get players here. We all like to laugh at Edmonton but we are in the same boat. The only reason people were willing to sign here on affordable contracts before is because of Iggy, and until we get another one of those types of players and are in a playoff position it will stay that way.

[EldrickOnIce]

Originally Posted by united

Crosby is 17th in the NHL and 13th among forwards. Of the 12 forwards above him, 3 have more difficult zone starts, he faces the toughest opponents, and he has the 5th-worst quality of teammates.
http://www.extraskater.com/players/d..._pct_rel&pos=F

OK... If corsi relative is your number.
Straight up corsi for, Crosby is 68th

[Wastedyouth]

Originally Posted by EldrickOnIce

OK... If corsi relative is your number.
Straight up corsi for, Crosby is 68th

But you said he wasn't in the top 100...

[Tyler]

I'm still waiting for a Michael Holditch clerical error announcement/confession to surface on this one. Wow.

[EldrickOnIce]

Originally Posted by Wastedyouth

But you said he wasn't in the top 100...

Yeah... I said if I remember correctly.
Which I didn't.
Still, 68th is a ways down the list for arguably the best player in the game.

[Wastedyouth]

Originally Posted by EldrickOnIce

Yeah... I said if I remember correctly.
Which I didn't.
Still, 68th is a ways down the list for arguably the best player in the game.

No one really said Corsi is the end all be all. In fact, it's quite flawed. But can be useful in its ways.

[EldrickOnIce]

Originally Posted by Wastedyouth

No one really said Corsi is the end all be all. In fact, it's quite flawed. But can be useful in its ways.

Absolutely.
I agree completely, and that is essentially what I thought I was saying.

[19Yzerman19]

Originally Posted by Arsonist22

Corsi numbers also don't take into account how a player is used. Engelland started 26.9% in the offensive zone and 31.5% in the defensive zone, so it's reasonable to assume that this partially accounts for low corsi numbers.

Last year, yes. In previous years he has had much easier zone starts - if you look at the aggregate from 2011-2014, he had 31.2% offensive zone, 28.7% defensive zone. In that time his FF% is 49%, and PDO 1007.

All in all not as bad as I originally thought just looking at last year when he was 44.6%.

Also evaluating the usefulness of a stat by saying "HA it doesn't put Crosby first" is pretty baffling. Crosby is good at a lot of things in addition to having good puck possession numbers.

[united]

Originally Posted by EldrickOnIce

OK... If corsi relative is your number.
Straight up corsi for, Crosby is 68th

I think relative is more applicable for this sort of thing as it partially accounts for the team the player plays on. Using straight up Corsi penalizes players on bad teams and rewards players on good teams (like +/-).

Straight up Corsi shows Willie Mitchell as being far better than Mark Giordano, but Willie Mitchell of course plays on the Stanley Cup champions while Mark Giordano plays on a lottery team. You don't need any stat to tell you Mark Giordano is significantly better than Willie Mitchell, however relative Corsi would confirm the "eye test".
http://www.extraskater.com/players/d...44&sort=cf_pct

I know that's just one example, and there's counter-examples, but for the most part I prefer relative over straight up Corsi as it's more in line with what one observes.