Jets ink Wellwood, Postma

               

 

Kevin Cheveldayoff had the air of a pretty relaxed gent this afternoon as he watched his club’s batch of prospects finish development camp at the Iceplex, but he did manage to tie up a loose end or two before beginning his weekend by signing two players to one year contracts.

Paul Postma received a one way deal as a reward for his fine offensive season on the Rock last year, as the 23 year old totaled 44 points on the way to an AHL all-star spot. I don’t like to put much emphasis on +/- absent the context of outshooting, competition, and what sort of goaltending he had behind him, so his -14 for the year doesn’t explicitly concern me.

If he makes the Jets next season, I suspect he’ll be sheltered quite extensively so that he can continue learning at the NHL level without being stretched beyond his current capabilities. As the current roster stands, he’ll have a difficult time beating out Clitsome for a regular spot in the top six, and he’s got no shot moving beyond that level barring a significant leap in his play, so his fate is likely to fill the Randy Jones spot on the roster. 

Kyle Wellwood’s contract is a more substantial matter in my view, and the 1.6 million offered for another season of his handiwork seems cheap at the price. Wellwood has pretty firmly established himself as a very solid possession player against middling comp over the last few years, and the market for players that are that productive is normally a fairly robust one.

It’s my suspicion that had Wellwood produced precisely the same numbers last year against precisely the same competition while standing 6’1" and weighing 200 pounds, he would have garnered a deal not unlike David Jones or P.A. Parenteau. Teams, and fans, appear to have a size fetish that can occasionally blind them to what actually happens on the ice, and while size certainly has its place as an asset, it should always be results that drive decision making. Make no mistake, Kyle Wellwood was a very productive player last season. 

One of the excellent tools available at Hockey Analysis is the WOWY (with or without you) function that shows how certain players work with others. Here are Wellwood’s Corsi-close numbers from last year with everyone on the club, and below is a table for the link-averse showing his efforts with the other top forwards and defenders. Wellwood and Wheeler both play the right side, so they hardly spent any time on ice together, which is why Wheeler is absent from this table: 

 

 

 

 

Not everything is a coincidence, people. Other than Bryan Little, every single Jet of note was better when 13 was riding shotgun, and his QComp numbers were right in the middle of the pack for the team’s skilled forwards, so it wasn’t merely a case of players slumming while working alongside him. 

 

I’m not blind to the holes in Kyle Wellwood’s game, because he can be muscled off the puck, and he can’t really be relied upon as a hard minutes forward, but there aren’t nearly as many of those players floating around as people like to think, and every last one of them makes a bong-load more than a million-six. Wellwood is just a useful guy to have around, and as for the idea that just anyone could pile up those points on a second line, that’s simply asinine.

 

Wellwood played about 5 1/2 minutes a night less during 11/12 than the club’s putative first line center, Bryan Little, while scoring one more point. The only other forward in the league with 47 points or more that played less time than Wellwood’s 14:57 was Nick Foligno, who just signed a RFA contract at double the price. Wellwood’s 37 points at EV placed him 86th in the league, ahead of guys like Getzlaf, Versteeg, Perry, Heatley and a multitude of other high-priced players.

 

Again, Wellwood’s not perfect, and I suspect he’ll have a very difficult time shooting north of 19% any time soon, but at some point, results have to override mindless size bias, right? If the players you play with outshoot and outscore the other team at a better rate with you on the ice than without, odds are that you aren’t just some schmuck along for the ride. 

 

At any rate, as a move to fill the top nine on the Jets for this season, the contract is virtually without risk. As Jim Slater’s deal attests, 1.6 million is what the Jets are willing to pay a guy that should spend this year as the club’s 10th forward, so offering Wellwood the same money for top-nine ice time has the look of a very nice bargain.