Moneypuck: Why Gillis should resign the Sedins

I wrote a piece yesterday over at Sporting Madness about how the general philosophy of franchise building discussed in Michael Lewis (the Elvis of sports)’ great book Moneyball holds true and has transcended baseball, even though the specific statistics cited may no longer be key to building a winning team cheaply. The basic concept of picking up undervalued players is applicable to any sport, including hockey, and Canucks’ general manager Mike Gillis is one of its biggest proponents. He gave a fascinating interview on the subject to Vancouver Sun writer Iain MacIntyre shortly after taking the job last year. Here are the highlights of the Moneyball part of their discussion:

“As Gillis talked Friday about management models, it wasn’t Sam Pollack or Bill Torrey or Glen Sather or Brian Burke he cited, but Sandy Alderson.
Alderson is the former U.S. marine who had no baseball management experience when he was named general manager of the Oakland Athletics in 1982. His hiring was ridiculed by many in the baseball establishment, but Alderson revolutionized the game.
He relied on data and detached analysis rather than experience and emotion to choose players and build his team, which became the best in baseball. His successor Billy Beane, a disciple, introduced the concept of “Moneyball,” which in turn spawned other unconventional executives like Theo Epstein of the Boston Red Sox and J.P. Ricciardi of the Toronto Blue Jays.
‘When I look at Sandy Alderson, he was the guy who basically reinvented baseball management,’ Gillis said. ‘He was a marine. Billy Beane doesn’t attend games; he listens on the radio. How unconventional is that?’
‘Everything that has happened in Major League Baseball sort of preceded hockey by about 10 years. They went through the wars before we did, went through massive change on the labour front before we did.
I think people will see more non-conventional management people [in hockey]. I’m hoping to bring that here — a philosophy like that. I don’t think this is without precedent.’”

So far, Gillis has done pretty well with this philosophy. One key example is with the signing of Kyle Wellwood, perhaps the hockey version of Oakland A’s catcher Jeremy Brown. Both acquisitions were marked by ridicule, with many suggesting that they were too fat and physically unfit to be professional athletes. Fitness concerns did plague Wellwood at first [Jason Botchford, The Province], but he overcame them to record 18 regular-season goals (sixth-best on the team) and became a key checking centre [Ben Kuzma, The Province] as well. Wellwood did well defensively against some of the Blues’ and Blackhawks’ top lines in the playoffs and recorded six points as well. For his $998,000 salary [Yahoo!], that’s an incredible bargain.

The next key step for Gillis is to resign unrestricted free agents Daniel and Henrik Sedin. It’s hard to think of any more underrated elite players in the NHL. As James Mirtle pointed out earlier this year, both finished tied for 13th in the league in regular-season points, in the top 10 in even-strength points and in the top 10 in +/-ON/60, which shows how well they outscored tough competition. Before the playoffs, I wrote in a FanPost over at Nucks Misconduct that they had historically underperformed in the postseason; a good part of that was thanks to situation, though, as they were second-line players for many of those playoff seasons and have only really developed into unquestioned top-line guys in the last couple of seasons. This year, they really answered the bell, finishing tied for the team lead with 10 postseason points in 10 games (almost double their .50 (Daniel) and .52 (Henrik) playoff points-per-game averages heading into this year) despite facing some difficult checking lines and elite defence pairings.

Despite all that, almost everyone seems to still underrate the Sedins. Consider this report from TSN.ca on their purported contract demands:

It appears that the Vancouver Canucks will have to break the bank if they want to hold on to the Sedin brothers.
According to a report on Swedish website expressen.se, Daniel and Henrik Sedin are looking for identical 12-year contracts worth $63 million each, comparable to the 12-year, $73 million deal that fellow countryman Henrik Zetterberg signed with the Detroit Red Wings.
While the twins enjoyed solid seasons with the Canucks last year, co-leading the team in scoring with 82 points each while each adding 10 points during the Canucks’ playoff run, they have yet to reach the same level as Zetterberg who captured the Conn Smythe trophy last season while leading his Red Wings to the Stanley Cup.

First, $63 million each over 12 years is hardly breaking the bank. That works out to a cap hit of $5.25 million per twin per year. According to the fantasticnhlnumbers.com, that wouldn’t even put them in the top 50 players in the NHL despite their point-per-game performance. Forwards scheduled to be paid more than that next year include the likes of Shawn Horcoff (53 points in 80 games last year), Chris Drury (56 points in 81 games), Thomas Vanek (64 points in 73 games), Patrick Marleau (71 points in 76 games), Jason Spezza (73 points in 82 games), Eric Staal (75 points in 82 games), Dany Heatley (72 points in 82 games), Brad Richards (48 points in 56 games), Daniel Briere (25 points in 29 games) and Paul Stastny (36 points in 45 games). Many of those guys are making considerably more than the Sedins would under this deal, and most of them are far worse defensively; I’d take the two Sedins over any two of the above players.

Furthermore, TSN compares the deal to Zetterberg’s, even though it’s for $10 million less, and states that the Sedins “have yet to reach the same level as Zetterberg”. Well, Zetterberg only put up 73 points in 77 games last year. He is one of the league’s elite players, and he has additional value thanks to his defensive prowess, but the edge offensively actually goes to the Sedins based on last year. Want to expand the sample size? If you look at Zetterberg’s numbers, he’s only averaged a point a game or more twice in his career (in 2005-06 and 2007-08). Daniel Sedin has accomplished the same feat twice as well (in 2006-07 and 2008-09), and Henrik came up only one point shy in 2006-07. I’d probably take Zetterberg over either Sedin thanks to his elite defensive skills, but the difference isn’t as stark as you’d think (and a $10 million savings more than makes up for that in my mind).

One potential downside of such a long deal is injury concerns, but I’m less worried about that with the Sedins than with almost any other player. Daniel has missed a grand total of one regular-season game over the past four seasons; Henrik hasn’t missed a single game. The Sedins aren’t bang-and-crash players, preferring instead to cycle the puck to create scoring chances, which is part of the reason they’re undervalued by many, but that’s actually a great thing for their durability; their style of play helps them avoid injuries and remain on the ice. They also aren’t overly flashy or quick, but that also speaks well for giving them long contracts. Speed tends to diminish with age, and players who rely on burning past defenders often struggle when they find out they can’t any more. Many of the forwards who have been reasonably productive as older players haven’t been the quickest, but have relied on smarts and hands; see Joe Sakic, Mike Modano and Luc Robitaille. The Sedins’ style suggests that they can be productive players for years to come.

The last point in favour of signing the Sedins is the productivity boost they give to whoever happens to be the third player on their line. Over the years, they’ve dramatically increased the production of such unheralded players as Anson Carter and Taylor Pyatt, who have struggled offensively when not playing with the twins. They did very well with Alex Burrows last year, who, while very talented, isn’t going to command a league-high salary any time soon; Gillis did brilliantly well to lock Burrows in at a cap hit of $2 million a year (NHL Numbers) through the 2012-2013 season. The advantage of the Sedins is they allow you to use a cheaper player than normal as your top-line right winger, saving valuable dollars that can be spent on second-line forwards, defencemen or goaltending. If the Sedins get the contract they’re asking for and Burrows continues to be their linemate, that’s a total cap hit of $12.50 million a year for your top-line forwards, which averages to $4.17 million per player. Again according to NHL Numbers, that’s the 97th-highest salary in the NHL. Using three forwards right around that number would give you a first line of Dustin Penner, Mike Fisher and Ales Hemsky, who combined for 135 points last year (stats from HockeyDB). The Sedins alone combined for 164 points last season; add Burrows to the mix, and you have 215 points from that first line, which is right up there with some of the elite lines in the league at a considerably cheaper price.

Looking over that list, it’s tough to find any good reason not to resign the twins at the deal they’re asking for. When you add Gillis’ negotiation skills to the mix, they might be available even cheaper or at a slightly shorter term. Yet, some writers (like Tony Gallagher of The Vancouver Province, Richard Loat of Canucks Hockey Blog and his colleague J.J. Guerrero) still don’t think this is a good deal, which shows just how underrated the twins are in my mind. To be fair, many of those concerns are more over the length of the contract than the cap hit, and that contract length is somewhat concerning, but this is still an incredible bargain if you ask me. For every Gallagher, there are plenty of those who do like the idea (including Yankee Canuck, Iain MacIntyre and Ed Willes), but the pure existence of this debate shows that the Sedins still aren’t getting the recognition they deserve. That’s why signing them to this deal (or one slightly better) would be a pure Moneypuck move, and why Gillis should do it as soon as possible.

As always, post comments here or send them to me on Twitter or at andrew_bucholtz [at] hotmail.com.

Tags: contracts, Daniel Sedin, finances, free agents, Henrik Sedin, Michael Lewis, Mike Gillis, Moneypuck, salary cap, Sedins' contract, statistics