Panthers proving to be one of NHL's best bargain hunters

Welcome to 10 Insights and Observations. Every week, I’ll use this space to highlight teams, players, storylines and general musings around the NHL.

This week, we look at a fun shootout goal, the Panthers finding value, Nashville peaking, Jack Eichel, Vince Dunn and more.

Stamkos's signature shootout move

While shootouts are in decline, I always find it interesting when a guy has “a move” and it works regularly. Jussi Jokinen loved to shoot low blocker, Patrick Kane walks in slowly and stick handles until the goalie flinches, Evgeny Kuznetsov is also fond of coming in at a snail's pace, while T.J. Oshie generally shoots five-hole.

One player’s move that has stood out lately is Steven Stamkos's. He is one of the best goal scorers of this generation and his one-timer has been his bread and butter, much like Alex Ovechkin. He has an interesting approach to the shootout. He swings out a little wide to his left, as a right-hand shot, then skates from left to right with the puck on his forehand, ready to shoot the whole time. The second the goalie starts moving with him, he shoots it across his body to the original side (left) that he came from. In back-to-back nights he did the exact same move and scored both times.

That looked easy. It wasn’t as smooth against Arizona, but a goal is a goal.

At some point, goalies will catch on and cheat to that side, so he will need to come up with a counter move — maybe he shoots high glove instead if the goalie delays sliding over with him? It’s a nice move though, and not something we normally see shooters do in the shootout.

Zacha coming into his own with Bruins

In 2015, Pavel Zacha was drafted sixth overall. It was the same draft as Connor McDavid, Jack Eichel and Mitch Marner. The four picks after him were Ivan Provorov, Zach Werenski, Timo Meier and Mikko Rantanen. All of those players had relatively early success in their careers, but for Zacha, the growing pains were more evident.

The 6-foot-4 forward entered the league and didn’t produce very much — he has still never cracked 20 goals or 40 points in a single season. But he did show signs of life the last two years with 17- and 15-goal campaigns, and his linemates in New Jersey weren’t exactly poor players. Over the past five seasons with the Devils, the two forwards he played with the most were Miles Wood and Jesper Bratt.

The trade to Boston to play with fellow Czechia natives David Krejci and David Pastrnak has really given a boost to his career. He’s playing just under a 20-goal pace but it’s very much within reach that he finally cracks that mark. He’s producing at a tie for his career-best of 0.7 points per game. The only other time he did that, in fairness, was the shortened COVID season. Funnily enough, he’s doing this playing 15:47 per game, which would be his lowest mark since his second full season in the league in 2017-18. Even though the goal total isn’t particularly high, his shot is really standing out.

That is an absolute rip against an elite goalie, who he beats clean. Against the Leafs, he loads up and just peppers a puck by Ilya Samsonov from distance with no screen.

There are not a lot of shooters in the league that can beat goalies clean like that. You wonder why he isn’t scoring 30+ goals with that shot, then you look and see he’s not even putting two shots on net per game. He is playing with the second leading goal scorer in the league, so it is easy to catch yourself deferring to him. Zacha is still just 25 and the Bruins essentially signed him through his prime. It’s working out well for them.

Time for Eichel to step up

When the Vegas Golden Knights swung big and acquired Eichel, there were a mountain of questions at the time surrounding his health. He had not played in nearly a year and had a serious injury.

He has stayed healthy for the most part, so now it’s time to start looking into his play. Since entering the league, Eichel has been an electric goal scorer and his highlight reel is right up there with any other player not named Connor McDavid. While he got drafted by a Buffalo organization that was a mess at the time, at some point he will also have to show he can help lead a winning team, too. He’s turning 27 this year and has played 450 NHL games, but none in the playoffs.

Vegas has started to make a claim on winning its division. Mark Stone is out. Logan Thompson is missing time. Eichel’s numbers with and without Stone since joining Vegas have fluctuated wildly. Their Corsi together at 5-on-5 is just over 54 percent. Without Stone, Eichel is at 49.5. Fenwick is over 58 together, and Eichel’s drops to just over 51 without. Expected goals together was over 60 and Eichel’s drops to 48.5 percent without him. Their goals-for percentage is over 72 percent together, but Eichel is at 45.8 percent without him.

It’s possible Stone doesn’t return until the playoffs. Vegas has other good players, so it does not fall exclusively on Eichel's shoulders to carry the team. But this should be his time to step up and lead the Golden Knights, paving the way for their captain to return for a postseason run.

Predators due for a shake-up?

If you look at Nashville’s team last season, it was a collection of career-highs. Matt Duchene scored 43 goals and 86 points. Filip Forsberg had 42 goals and 84 points (in just 69 games). Roman Josi had 96 points. Juuse Saros played a monster 67 games with a .918 save percentage. Tanner Jeannot came out of nowhere with 24 goals and 41 points. Just massive years everywhere.

The Predators squeaked into the playoffs and promptly got swept. They looked at all that and said, "Let’s buy." They traded for Ryan McDonagh, signed Nino Niederreiter and kept their core together. Technically, they are still in the playoff hunt. They will plausibly hang around there throughout the rest of the season. But they are in tough looking up at teams like the Oilers, Flames, Wild, maybe even the Avalanche and possibly the Kraken. Those are tough rosters to be competing with.

Nashville has given it a go with this core but at this point you wonder how much further it can really go with them.

Dunn emerging as offensive force for Kraken

There are a number of defensemen having career years in 2022-23, like Brandon Montour and Josh Morrissey. One particularly fun one is Vince Dunn on the Kraken. Originally a St. Louis Blues draft pick, he was snagged in the expansion draft. He fell out of favor with the Blues and Craig Berube’s “Can't get walked one-on-one” comment after Carl Grundstrom burned him in a game seemed to seal the deal.

After he was claimed by the Kraken, he responded by tying his career-high in points and while his underlying numbers with Adam Larsson were generally good, they suffered from playing on a poor team. Not this season. Still paired together, Dunn and Larsson are above water in all major categories, and have outscored opponents by a whopping 60-34. They are the prototypical offensive defenseman and shutdown defenseman that balance each other nicely.

Dunn has been as hot as anyone in the new year with 21 points in 20 games, playing 24:05 per night since the calendar flipped to 2023. Turning 27 this year and a pending RFA, Dunn picked the right time to really emerge as an offensive force on a Kraken team that is very much in the hunt for a playoff spot.

Kotkaniemi offer sheet still looking like mistake for Hurricanes

We are in Year 2 of the eight-year, $38.65-million offer sheet contract that Jesperi Kotkaniemi signed with Carolina. While there is still lots of time for things to play out here, the early returns have been… questionable.

Kotkaniemi played 12:01 per game last season and put up 29 points, and he isn’t a checking centre because they already have Jordan Staal. If there is one team that can find that type of value on the cheap better than anyone it is the Hurricanes. In the summer, they said goodbye to Vincent Trocheck, perhaps in part to open up more opportunities for Kotkaniemi. He is playing a bit more, averaging 14:18 per game this season and he’s actually producing at a lower rate across the board.

It’s not like he’s playing with depth guys either. His most common linemates this season are Martin Necas and Andrei Svechnikov, the Canes' first- and third-leading scorers. Kotkaniemi supports both and the puck does not die on his stick. He has flashed the ability to make some plays, but the number of players that can play centre in that spot is lengthy to say the least. At 22, he still has plenty of time to take a step and hit another level but at some point he has to reward the offer sheet.

Panthers are expert bargain hunters

The Matthew Tkachuk trade was a blockbuster and show-stopper across the league. He has been a legitimate superstar this season.

When you look around much of the Florida roster beyond that, you see a number of quality adds on value. Waiver claim Gustav Forsling has become a legitimate top-four defenseman (which might actually be underselling him). The recently extended Josh Mahura — who is 24 and putting together a quality season — was also a waiver claim. Carter Verhaeghe might have a 40-goal season and while they did extend him at a decent number, he originally signed a two-year, $2 million contract to head to Florida. Brandon Montour has been one of the better offensive defensemen in the league and cost them a third-round pick. Anthony Duclair has been hurt this season but is much better than his $3 million salary. Even the price on Sam Bennett (Emil Heineman and a second-round pick), is insanely below value.

If we aren’t already, we’re going to look back on the Tkachuk trade and say the value was crazy. The Panthers have underachieved this season and they have holes, but the bargains they have found are quite impressive.

Blackhawks are bottoming out properly

We have talked about the Brandon Hagel trade from the Tampa Bay side. It's easy to see the value for a Cup contender getting a good player and going to the finals. But what about the other team?

The Blackhawks traded Hagel — a good, young player on a cheap contract — and got even more futures. The trade upset their veterans from their Cup core. Isn’t the point of rebuilding to have good, young players on your roster on cheap contracts, not to trade them away? The answer is yes, but before you can get there, and way before you can start thinking about being buyers again, you have to ask if you have established the core in the first place.

The Blackhawks were very much at a stage where they asked, "Have we been bad enough yet?" The answer, clearly, was no. From 2017-19 they drafted three times in the first round: 31st, eighth and third. Their picks were Henri Jokiharju, Adam Boqvist and Kirby Dach. None of those players are still in the organization. The only regular of sorts from those three classes is Philipp Kurashev.

In the three drafts that followed, their highest picks were 17th, 32nd and seventh. Nobody from those classes has yet to play more than 15 games in the NHL.

Where is the core? As we see with Tampa Bay, Hagel is a nice complementary piece to a strong core on a good team. One of the players Chicago got back, Taylor Raddysh, is flashing as a player with 14 goals already and 24 points in 53 games. He has another year left on his deal and is making under $800,000. But more importantly, the Blackhawks are bottoming out properly. This is setting the stage to acquire a true blue-chip prospect. And you don’t get there by hanging on to good but not great players that aren’t going to elevate you to an elite team, nor be bad enough for you to get a high pick.

Rangers chose wisely with Trocheck over Strome

After an insanely fun run to the conference finals last year, the New York Rangers had a collection of interesting decisions to make with a number of free agents and limited cap space. Several key players in that run had contracts expiring, including Ryan Strome, Andrew Copp, Frank Vatrano and Tyler Motte. The devil you know is better than the one you don’t, but the Rangers ended up saying goodbye to all four.

One decision that was particularly intriguing was that of Strome, who was their de facto second-line center, coming off a strong season that saw him hit 20+ goals for the first time in his career. Yet when free agency started, they almost immediately signed fellow 28-year-old Vincent Trocheck instead. When the numbers shook out, Strome was actually making slightly less money than Trocheck on a contract with two fewer years. But the difference in level of play has been far greater than $600,000.

Strome is, admittedly, on a horrible Anaheim Ducks team but they signed him to a big five-year contract to presumably help them take a step forward. That has not happened. Strome’s production the last three seasons tracked to 0.84 points per game, then 0.88, then 0.74. This season it is at 0.47. The Ducks have had long stretches where they look disinterested and he is part of that equation. His ice time is lower than what he played last season on a contender. His shot rate is down, and his faceoff percentage is its lowest since his second season in the league (though he has never been good in the faceoff circle in general).

When you give a five-year deal to a veteran in their late 20s, you expect a level of reliable production and dependability. In Year 1, it has been a lost season for the franchise. Trocheck, on the other hand, is having a solid first campaign on a Rangers team that has the NHL's best record in the 2023 calendar year and is starting to load up.

Schmaltz is no desert mirage

Speaking of lost seasons, it’s always easy to forget about players on bad teams. Rather quietly, Nick Schmaltz is in the midst of putting together a second straight productive season on a really bad Arizona Coyotes team. He had an impressive 59 points in 63 games in 2021-22. So far this year, he’s at 35 in 39. He is shooting roughly 18 percent over these two seasons but he is also a career 14+ percent shooter. Since we hit 2023, he has 19 points in his last 20 outings, playing well over 20 minutes per game.

Schmaltz doesn’t shoot a ton but he has some finish to him. What’s particularly impressive is his speed. He can pull away from defenders in space with or without the puck to get into spots to make plays. He is crafty and has quick hands in tight. He’s signed for three more years at $5.85 million per season and is just 26. He is a legit point producer and a fun player to watch.