Why Mika Zibanejad’s next contract will define this era of Rangers hockey
It’s safe to say that four years into Mika Zibanejad’s tenure as a New York Rangers, there are no regrets. The front office traded fan favorite Derick Brassard and a seventh round pick to the Ottawa Senators for the then restricted free agent Zibanejad and a second round pick.
In the former 6th overall pick’s time in New York, he realized his potential recording 237 points in 283 games. Trading Brassard for an under developed player like Zibanejad was a master stroke of asset management.
At 27 years and 313 days old, Zibanejad is at a productivity crossroads. Relative to the rest of the team, the youngest average age roster in the league, the Swede is an old dog. The best players on a potential Stanley Cup contender won’t reach their peak for a few years. Zibanejad already has.
The Rangers were starved for a number one center for most of Henrik Lundqvist’s prime. The team featured players like Derek Stepan, Brad Richards and Brassard in heavy minutes. Objectively speaking, Zibanejad’s production dwarfed that of any post-2010 center.
Coming into the 2021 season, there was significant conjecture that the organization would name Zibanejad captain. Instead, he was anointed a member of the leadership group and an alternate captain.
Though Zibanejad makes sense as a captain, the team opted for a different leadership structure. In my opinion, the organization did this because it wasn’t sure if it would retain Zibanejad beyond the 2022 season when his contract expires.
It would not want to have a third straight player don the captaincy and not be with the organization long-term. This isn’t to say the team may not ultimately give Zibanejad an extension and subsequently award him the captaincy, but the clues we have fit.
Understanding age curves in hockey
By no means is a player who’s 28-years-old washed up. In fact, Zibanejad will probably have solid counting stats into his early 30s based on his career shooting trends and his power play time. The real issue for the team will be paying a reasonable price for said production.
As one of the older players on an extremely young team, Zibanejad’s peak offensive production from an underlying statistical perspective was probably in the past.
This is tied to a pair of factors: ice time and defensive effectiveness. As players get older, the first thing that typically goes is their agility and skating. This will in turn lead to worse goals against statistics over time as their mobility decreases.
Of course, this data is based on average career trends, there is the possibility that Zibanejad falls into the outlier category and regresses earlier or later than a usual player does. If we go a little bit tighter and only look at counting stats (points/assists) the age curve is a bit less aggressive.
The age based curves typically peg age 29 as the peak of statistical production, which would be the 2022–2023 season for Zibanejad. Going off of the plot above, Zibanejad falls on the dark blue line as someone who made their league debut at age 18.
This plot represents the percentage of points a player scored during the course of their career in relation to what number season in the league. As a player gets older, their rate of production eventually plateaus around age 30. As a soon to be 28-year-old, Zibanejad is reaching the end of his peak production window.
Now, that’s not to say there isn’t value in Zibanejad going forward. In relation to typical NHL production, the forward did not really hit his stride until age 25. Thus far into his career, the 2019–2020 campaign with 75 points — including 41 goals — seems like a bit of a statistical outlier.
Production at even strength
The key to understanding a Zibanejad extension stems from the process. At a fundamental level, talent evaluation in the NHL is about chance creation at even strength. A player’s ability to create scoring chances and stop the other team from making them is where value comes from.
While counting stats are easy to understand (goals/assists and +/-) they do not often tell the whole story. In the hockey stats community, there is a small library of resources to better put production into context: quality of opponent, quality of line mate, shoot or pass first, game situation.
This in turn allows for a more thorough statistical sample when making talent evaluation. Starting with the gold standard of modern hockey analytics, expected goals quantify the value of every shot on the ice. The more likely a shot is to result in a goal, the more valuable the shot is.
For the data visualization above, a player wants a positive top half of the rink and a negative bottom half. This would indicate a player creating more expected goals than average and conceding fewer expected goals than average while at even strength.
The 2020–2021 season is only 15 games worth of data, so it’s not enough information to make a judgement on. However, large scale, we do get the impression of an above average play driver. In particular, Zibanejad’s first three seasons jump out for being strong in chance suppression.
Only in Zibanejad’s first season with the team (2016–2017) did he not play as the number one center. Going off of that, with the above time on ice and zone start information there’s a better understanding of Zibanejad’s production.
The variable on the X-axis is Dangerous Fenwick for, a stat which measures what percent of quality unblocked shots a player is generating while on the ice. More than 50% means that the player is creating a majority of the quality unblocked shots on goal.
The Y axis is the quality of competition, so the lower a point is vertically, the worse quality of competition. In Zibanejad’s first two years with New York, he played a more offensively inclined role and did not draw as difficult matchups.
However, since the Rangers traded Kevin Hayes at the 2019 trade deadline, Zibanejad was forced into a more all-encompassing role. On the penalty kill, as the trigger man on the power play and the number one center to matchup with difficult opponents.
The 2021 season
This year in particular, Zibanejad has never played a higher percentage of his minutes against elite competition. This season, the forward’s struggles are pretty obvious to anyone who’s watched a single Rangers game this year.
It’s important to acknowledge that Zibanejad had COVID-19 in December. This stopped the forward from participating in training camp. In fact, Zibanejad had just a single day of practice prior to the season opener against the New York Islanders.
Yet, Zibanejad and the coaching staff both swear there are no lingering effects from the virus. While the Swede may feel fine in his own words, there’s a difference between being in shape and being in “game shape.”
On top of that, there’s the obvious pressure on Zibanejad to perform. At some point, pressing hard to make up for a bad stretch of play will wear a player thin. This is especially true considering that Zibanejad is one of a few players the Rangers rely on for scoring.
Thus far, Zibanejad has just one goal and two assists in 15 games. In those matchups, he’s taken 44 shots for a shooting percentage of 2. While this is the result of some bad puck luck, the underlying numbers are also cause for some concern.
It’d be one thing if Zibanejad was creating scoring chances and it just so happened they weren’t going in. Instead, the team is actively struggling when Zibanejad is on the ice at even strength.
GF/60- Goals for per 60 minutes of ice time
xGF/60-Expected goals for per 60 minutes, using the expected goals model of valuing shots, how many goals would Zibanejad be expected to score over the course of 60 minutes
CF/60-Chances for per 60 minutes, how many scoring chances overall is Zibanejad on the ice for, not putting a value on better chances
xGA/60-Expected goals against per 60 minutes, how many goals is the other team expected to score per 60 minutes of ice time against Zibanejad using the expected goals model of value on shots
CA/60-Chances against per 60, how many chances is Zibanejad on the ice for per 60 minutes not putting a value on better chances.
Using the bar graphs above, it’s clear that Zibanejad is struggling. He’s almost two full standard deviations away from average in goals for per 60. While that can be attributed to the team’s overall scoring struggles, the expected goals indicate it’s deeper.
It means that the Rangers are not creating good scoring chances with Zibanejad on the ice and in fact are giving up more quality chances with him. The eye test is not lying, Zibanejad is overwhelmed at even strength right now and the expected goals for and against prove it.
Using the expected goals model above, there’s a sense of how it’s calculated. xG are scored in the decimal place up to one for a one hundred percent chance of that shot becoming a goal. That Zibanejad wrist shot from the circle that’s scored at 6.4% would typically be seen as xGF .064. At the end of a game, adding up the xGF values for each individual shot would give a player’s xGF for the entire game.
Conversely, counting up the xGA value of each shot against would give the expected goals against for the entire game. Zibanejad’s xG differential is -.62, the third lowest on the entire team. The only two worse? Anthony Bitteto and Libor Hajek….not exactly encouraging.
Show me the money
Cutting down to the ethos of this, Zibanejad is the fulcrum point. The sliding door, if you will, for the next five years of Rangers hockey. As of this moment, the front office and coaching staff are firmly of the mindset that the team is still rebuilding.
As the youngest team in the entire league, there’s some truth to that. The team is still in dire need of a second line center and another left handed defenseman. The young players the team is counting on are not putting up counting stats even though they have strong underlying numbers.
The main issue I have with this premise is the team’s current salary cap and roster construction. The team will have about $25 million tied up in Jacob Trouba, Chris Kreider and Artemi Panarin for the next several years.
It also has several players on entry level contracts: Alexis Lafreniere, Kaapo Kakko, K’Andre Miller, Adam Fox, Igor Shesterkin, Filip Chytil, Brett Howden, and Ryan Lindgren.
Entry level contracts lock in a player’s price for the first three years of their career based on where the player was drafted. Since the team is banking heavily on several of these players reaching elite potential like Kakko, Fox and Lafreniere, the mountains of cap space on the horizon are misleading.
On the other hand, if this core of prospects does not live up to its collective potential, the team isn’t winning anything aside from maybe another lottery.
That’s how quick all of this Stanley Cup contender of the future talk can fall apart. As these underpriced players hopefully reach their potential, the room to bring in outside talent shrinks. Last week I wrote about what a potential lineup would look like and wrote Zibanejad’s name in pencil.
Based on how the organization has historically dealt with players entering their walk year, it’s safe to assume that Zibanejad will enter the 2021–2022 season without an extension in place. Currently, the center makes $5.35 million per season.
At the end of the 2021–2022 campaign, Zibanejad will be 29-years-old with two seasons (2018–2019 and 2019–2020) of elite statistical production. Finding comparable contracts is difficult because older contracts were signed under the assumption that the salary cap would continue to increase.
However, because of COVID-19’s impact on NHL revenue, the salary cap will remain $81.5 million for at least the next two years. So, whatever potential number the Rangers give Zibanejad will represent a greater percent of the salary cap than deals signed in previous years.
The easiest comparison is Nashville Predator center Matt Duchene. The Ontario native signed a seven year, $8 million per year deal as a 29-year-old unrestricted free agent during the summer of 2019. Both Duchene and Zibanejad profile similarly. Several years of point totals in the 40s and 50s as well as a pair of 70 point seasons.
But, just two years into said deal, the Predators have buyer’s remorse and are already rumored to be shopping the center. More importantly, Zibanejad’s underlying numbers, especially expected goals, for his career are better than Duchene.
The most common player using hockey reference’s point share tool is Tampa Bay Lightning center Tyler Johnson. That wouldn’t work because Zibanejad already makes more than Johnson’s $5 million per season and that deal was signed as a restricted free agent.
Assuming the Rangers intend to keep Zibanejad, the cap hit has to come in at less than $10 million per season. Having Zibanejad, Kreider, Trouba and Panarin at about $36 million total leaves $46 million for 14 skaters and two goaltenders.
If the team extends Pavel Buchnevich this off-season, that’s $40 million for 13 skaters and two goalies. The point being, the math on building a potential contender gets a lot more difficult when the roster building method used is extremely top-heavy.
The Toronto Maple Leafs have a big four of John Tavares, Mitch Marner, Auston Matthews and William Nylander earning a combined $40.5 million. With so much money tied up in just four players, it typically leaves the Leafs searching the bargain bin to fill out the bottom six and bottom four on defense.
Just for the sake of playing out this exercise, let’s say Adam Fox is as good as he’s played thus far. The Rangers would be wise to lock him up long-term at the end of his ELC and buy restricted free agent years ahead of time. That’s quickly another $7 or $8 million right there.
To have about $44 million tied up in just six skaters is an extremely dangerous proposition. The players on these types of long-term, big ticket deals typically get some form of a no-movement clause as part of the extension.
It’s really not difficult to see the worst case scenario playing out. The Rangers end up like Toronto with a really good group of young high end players but with a defined ceiling because of the roster’s overall lack of depth.
For all the talk of Stanley Cups from experts based on the organization’s prospect pool, it’s the salary cap situation that worries me the most. The team has enough prospects in the pipeline that it can afford one or two not living up to their potential.
Giving Zibanejad a $10 million per season deal based on past performance is not as easy to move on from as a draft pick being a bust. Maybe this 2021 season is just a fluke and Zibanejad will get back to driving play down the stretch this season and all of his walk year.
From a team building perspective, this Zibanejad deal is the organization’s sliding door decision. Does it trust him to stave off the aging process and carry the team’s power play and first line as a Stanley Cup contender into his early 30s?
