2024 Report Cards: Dallas' offseason additions
A report card for all the new faces.
Journey’s end, baby.
The report cards are coming to an end, but we’re not done yet. While Jim Nill had a questionable offseason, it’s still worth looking at each player in a vacuum. After all, sometimes players can need a change of scenery to get better — a change of scenery can also make them worse. Sometimes we can expect their worst years (see Ryan Suter), and sometimes we can unexpectedly get their best years (see Joe Pavelski). The current crop of Matt Dumba, Ilya Lyubushkin, Brendan Smith, Colin Blackwell, and Casey DeSmith won’t set the world on fire, but they all range between milquetoast and interesting.
The important factor in all of this is that none of these players were meant to radically change anything; Dallas will be transformed by their young core, whether it’s NHLers getting better (Wyatt Johnston and Logan Stankoven) or the ones who will battle for playing time (Mavrik Bourque and Lian Bichsel). Will the offseason additions accentuate that, or take away from that? That’s what we’re here to find out.
Programming note: I’ll have a recap tomorrow with links to each player, and yes more grades — this time for the departed.
Matt Dumba
At $3.7 million AAV, Dumba brings with him 12 points, and will cost Dallas a point and a half in the standings (xSPAR).
Starting at the top, it’s everyone’s least favorite bad boy. As I’ve probably mentioned, I’ve always been fond of Dumba’s game. A rugged defender with some polish and a once-dangerous shot, he’s no longer dynamic, but he’s a right shot blueliner who doesn’t need to replace Tanev — he just needs to hang in there, and support one of Miro Heiskanen (unlikely), Thomas Harley (more likely), or Esa Lindell (most likely?).
Dumba had a rough year. His time in Arizona was more or less wasted, but it’s also hard to fault him, as the team was awful — despite a hot start — and his most common linemate was Travis Dermott (not exactly Harley or Heiskanen), and when Tampa Bay brought him in at the deadline, he played in a limited role with young defensive defensemen, Emil Martinsen Lilleberg. Again, hard to really consider who he was with players like that.
As I noted on Twitter, if nothing else, Dumba is still two things: way better in the defensive zone than Ryan Suter (who was good for a minute, but over the last several years just flat out played hot potato hockey with the puck in the DZN), and his shot bombs still have mustard, as they’re still creating rebounds at a way higher rate than most defenders (and likely one of the best, period). It’s not much when weighed against everything else that defensemen need to do, but versus Suter, it’s an upgrade. Dumba is not being asked to do anything more than clean up the defensive zone, which he does well, and not just from the cliched standpoint of clearing the crease.
What’s worth nothing — if we want to be charitable and give him a pass — is that Dumba has been quietly effective in transition, even in his post-injury years.
To the point where it was an active asset and flat out elite two years ago.
Granted, there’s probably a lot of the Jonas Brodin Effect here, as that was his most common linemate. But perhaps that’s to Dumba’s credit if someone like Harley or Heiskanen play next to him (this is also why I really hope they don’t pair him next to Esa Lindell).
It’s hard to give Dumba a proper grade, but I’m a little more optimistic than most, and hopefully Corey’s data illustrates why. He won’t get a good grade for the year he had (I don’t read much into healthy scratches, but getting healthy scratched in Arizona certainly doesn’t look good on his resume), but I’m not ready to give up on him.
Grade: (A wandering) C-
Ilya Lyubushkin
At $3.2 million AAV, for three years, Lyubushkin brings with him 8 points, and will cost Dallas over three points in the standings (xSPAR).
Lyubushkin is more or less the Roman Polak redux. His year was split between Anaheim and Toronto, and what we you get is pretty what you see.
Lyubushkin is a little more nuanced than your typical shutdown defender. Plus he plays hard, with a ton of bite to his game. This is a stark contrast to Jani Hakanpaa, who while massive, was just a puppy dog. Lyubushkin is no puppy. Just ask Dylan Holloway.
However, it doesn’t change the fact that he’s simply not very good, and an angry Hakanpaa is still Hakanpaa: as in, a defender with no real presence in all three zones. I would have tolerated the Lyubushkin signing at less term, but three million would be a lot for any depth defender and for three years??? Even though I’ve tolerated Nill’s offseason as a ‘Two Steps Back to Let the Core Take Two Steps Forward’ kind of thing, Lyubushkin’s deal is awful by any measure.
Still, as a whole, I would say that Lyubushkin had a decent year for players of his type given how he looked in Toronto next to Morgan Reilly, and in Anaheim next to Pavel Mintyukov (presumably, this foretells the plan in Dallas, which is Lyubushkin next to either Heiskanen or Harley). In fact, his presence next to Reilly seemed like a boon for them.
It was a really good year, all things considered. But expecting Lyubushkin to be anything other than an in-your-face flat foot is a bridge too far.
Grade: (A middling) C+
Brendan Smith
At $1 million for on year, Smith brings with him 15 points, and will earn Dallas an extra point in the standings (xSPAR).
For years, Smith has been an analytics darling. However, that was many years ago when he was playing in Detroit. Is he still that guy?
Kind of. Paired primarily with Ian Cole in New Jersey, Smith has shown he’s still kind of got it — at least in the defensive zone. He’s also surprisingly adept at retrieving the puck. Still, it’s hard to see Smith as anything other than a warm body in case Lian Bichsel is ready, and a cold one — just as he was in Jersey when he was healthy scratched — if he is.
Grade: (A yeoman) C+
Colin Blackwell
At $775,000 for one year, Blackwell brings with him 12 points, and will add Dallas .6 points in the standings (xSPAR).
His Goals Above Replacement don’t look pretty.
But he’s been an analytics darling for years. However, as players change, so do their analytics. Although it’s worth noting that Micah Blake McCurdy’s model judges Blackwell much more favorably (again, it’s worth reiterating the difference between the models — EH’s model wants to know more about a player’s production from shift to shift compared to a replacement level performance / Micah’s model wants to know the scheduled shift to shift performance against their future value).
Blackwell spent most of his time with Joey Anderson and Jason Dickinson on a tanking Chicago team, in way more minutes than you would expect. Leveraging his energetic playmaking skillset next to Evgenii Dadonov and Sam Steel on a deep Cup contender will prove to be a much better environment.
Grade: (A quality) C+
Casey DeSmith
At $1 million for three years, DeSmith brings with him an .895 save percentage in 29 games, a 2.89 goals against average, and will add Dallas an extra .7 points in the standings (xSPAR).
DeSmith has been a solid goaltender throughout his career, with a .909 save percentage. There’s just one small problem…
If Dallas’ penalty kill falters, DeSmith is not the guy to bail them out — at least if he’s anything like this past year. In fact, DeSmith was a real x-factor with the Canucks this year, allowing 24 shorthanded goals in 29 games. At nearly a goal against per game on the penalty kill, that’s just insane. For perspective on his 24 goals allowed on the penalty kill, that was only less goal allowed than Jake Oettinger…in 23 more games. To spill even more salt shakers over this wound, Vancouver was 6th in expected goals against shorthanded.
To be fair, DeSmith was solid at even strength, even when Vancouver was giving him a harder workload. He’s not gonna fight for the starting job or anything, but that’s what backups are for, and DeSmith is — for better or worse — a backup.
You actually gave me some hope about Dumba. It seemed like the Stars struggled all year at creating rebound opportunities.
It will also be nice to hopefully have a big man that finally has some bite (with all due respect to Oleksiak)
Those historical graphs on Dumba are super helpful and back up what my eyes saw in his last years in Minny. Cautiously optimistic that a new partner and some stability in his role and environment could yield a productive top 4 RHD.