What's up with Dion Phaneuf?

Thought you’d like it! I was pleasantly surprised with the outcome.

Maybe, but his s% was good with the Flames this year. I’ve noticed also that he likes that move where the shooting angle is covered so from the right point he does a spinerama to the backhand and dumps it in the corner along the boards. I think we just need a bigger sample size.

I think we’re all a bit worried that he won’t live up to this contract. This is especially true if his numbers have been relatively stable over the years, because this suggests that he not going to enhance the value we get on his $6.5M cap hit.

I really do think that he has brought about an important culture change in the dressing room lately, however. Furthermore, although I’ve seen him make idiot plays going for a big hit, I’ve also seen him look quite responsible defensively the remaining 95% of the time. Oh, and we have a half-decent goaltender to bail us out of those brain cramp situations.

The bottom line is, although he may never live up to his contract, the Leafs are still a significantly better team with Phaneuf in the lineup than they were with Stajan, Hagman, White and Mayers in it. Maybe I’ll hate him next year, but for now, I’m happy to have him and his contract on board.

Given how many awesome D are on EL or RFA contracts this kind of analysis will always kill a contract like Phaneuf’s. I know he wasn’t a UFA but Calgary (and Toronto) clearly decided to pay him like one.

Also, outside his rookie year and this year with Calgary (sharing time with J-Bo) he’s always been over 25 mpg, which is probably the single most important stat for D-man. 12th, 5th and 5th from 2007-2009. His 26:22 with the Leafs would put him 3rd, and it’s not like we have no depth on D.

FWIW, 15th, 5th and 16th in points over the same span. I see nothing in the underlying SOG and S% stats to suggest this year’s offensive drop off is anything but an anomaly. Also noteworthy Calgary is 27th in NHL in goals this year; past few years they were always an above average team. No doubt Dion takes some of the blame for that but I think it’s more the reverse: his stats were down because the team sucked offensively. I mean, Stajan immediately became their #1C. Dion couldn’t do it all himself.

Bottom line is I think all good teams need a premium all-rounder who can play 25+ mins and put up better than 0.5 ppg. We haven’t had one since—what, early 80s Borje?—until now. If we have to overpay him a bit to get someone like that, it’s a place I’m willing to overpay. We just have to make up for it other places (like trading Komi!!! Sorry everyone).

the combination of 13th in goals and 10th in hits in whats being touted as a bad year for him make me think we don’t have to start piling into the bomb shelter. of all the categories listed those two, especially in combination with eachother have the biggest impact. His net ranking in all of those categories is probably somewhere closer to the top 8 than his individuals.

No guarantees in anything, but Phaneuf has an established track record and the stats suggest his diminished points this year are an anomaly.

Redden was 30 when Sather signed him to that moronic-before-the-ink-was-dry contract, coming off 4 straight years of declining minutes. However, Redden was still an excellent D-man at 28 (65G, 50 pts, 23:28), which will be Dion’s age when this deal expires.

I was at a Flames/Wild game last year and Dion shattered the same pane of glass behind Harding on consecutive shifts, one from centre ice!
Big applause for that one.

want to read this and this about Ian White – just to prepare you for his qualifying offer.

You’d be hard-pressed to find anyone here who doesn’t love the play of Ian White. He was one of the fan favourites in Blue & White.

The only 2 problems were:
A) He may be playing at somewhere close to his ceiling
B) He is going to be expecting a big raise this summer

if you want a good view on Matt Stajan – check out articles here, here and here all with Stajan content.

Being Leaf fans, we obviously over-analyze everything – and sometimes we get it right.

Also, keep him away from soccer balls.

You say in your blog post that Dion got off to a great start in Toronto, threw some big hits, got in a fight, scored a goal. To the best of my knowledge he hasn’t scored a goal yet in a Leaf uniform.

A couple questions:

1. Has Dion EVER been a good defender? Even in his glory days I didn’t see any evidence of him as a lock-down guy. If he has regressed, do you think it’s laziness or something else? Has his defence pairing changed? I see him needing to play with a very sound defensive partner to cover up his mistakes. Hopefully Schenn can develop into that guy.

2. I hear a lot of talk about his shot always getting blocked/going wide, but is this a new development? His SOG #s don’t seem to have varied with the exception of this year in Calgary, when he was getting less TOI overall and on the PP, which would suggest his per minute numbers (if I was bothered to calculate it) probably weren’t that far off. Is he taking more shots but more aren’t finding the target (leaving him with roughly the same SOG totals)? Or has this always been an issue?

Thanks again for coming by.