In The Wild: Reacting to Thomas Harley's two-year bridge deal

Boom.

Just as Evolving-Hockey predicted, Thomas Harley: two years, with a $4 million AAV. (Okay they were a thousand short.)

With $693,59 left in cap, I’d say Jim Nill’s work is done. And done.

Everything else, on the other hand, is just the beginning, and that includes Harley’s long term prospects. It was a great year for the 23-year old defensemen. Despite being the sixth defensemen taken in the 2019 draft — after Bowen Byram, Moritz Seider, Philip Broberg, Victor Soderstrom and Cam York , respectively — he’s become its most prominent name beyond Sieder, and by a yardstrick. With 47 points, including an obscene 15 goals, his first full season was a smashing success.

71 percent of our subscribers gave Harley an A+ in the end-of-year report cards. It was one of the more unanimous grades of any player not named Wyatt Johnston and Logan Stankoven. And I would say it was well-earned. However, we’re still learning about Harley. I don’t mean Harley, The Player. I mean Harley, The Future. His regular season was very different from his postseason, at least through the lens of production (don’t worry, more on that in a bit). As good as he is, we’re only 158 games into his career.

Do we have reason to suspect he won’t be worth twice what he’s now making at the end of his current term?

The data

Using Louis Boulet’s slick-looking charts once more, Harley looks a proper defender; someone who is careful in his own zone, but who can also control territory from coast to coast.

Visual courtesy of Louis Boulet. Data from Natural Stat Trick, MoneyPuck, and Corey Sznajder.

This is not just a “good puck mover.” You don’t rate in those percentiles for zone defense by accident. This is the work of a phenom; a word I don’t use lightly. To give you some perspective on what exactly being worth six extra points in the standings (or SPAR) is worth, here was John Klingberg at the height of his powers.

Don’t know what you’re looking at and need a filthy casual explainer? Click here to learn more about Evolving-Hockey’s Goals Above Replacement (GAR).

That’s not to crown Harley. If anything, Klingberg’s sharp decline — which clearly began well before his injuries — should be the momentary pause any organization takes when assessing their aggressive d-men. This was the loose takeaway from Patrick Bacon (who runs the expected goal model Jack Fraser uses on his cards) when going over Alex Pietrangelo’s erratic play several years back. The Stars themselves have kind of a muddled history with puck-moving defenders, between Klingberg, Trevor Daley, and Julius Honka. It makes sense, whether intentional or not, that Harley’s deal would be the opposite of Klingberg’s, who only had to play 65 games for Nill to sign him to a seven-year deal.

Again, the cap was the cap. A bridge deal doesn’t necessarily imply some kind of adjacent subterfuge about “lessons learned” or whatever. Just because Miro Heiskanen was given full term doesn’t mean they trust Jason Robertson less for giving him a bridge deal. You can’t sign everyone worth a max deal to a max deal. That’s just the cost of doing business in a flat cap world. But I can see a world where a war room discussion asked questions about Harley’s intrinsic, long term value.

As for me, I’m convinced. It would be one thing if he were simply scoring goals from the backend. But that’s not the case. While I’ve gone into greater detail here, I always prefer the intelligent outsider’s opinion. This piece by Vinh Cao is a banger, and why the dude doesn’t have thousands of subscribers is beyond me

On the Rise: Thomas Harley

It’s easy to tag aggressive players with the description of “risky.” And in many ways, that’s true. Many puck movers are essentially just risk assessments: the reward they provide is great enough to offset the risk inherent in how they generate those rewards. Those Dallas puck movers were great examples for different reasons: Honka holding the puck too long, Daley activating too deep, and Klingberg for making too many extra lateral moves.

But I don’t really see that risk in Harley’s game, not because he isn’t willing, or because it isn’t there, but because his game is much more intentional and mindful. This beautiful outlet pass was technically a risk, but it was well-calculated one.

Sure, I’m drinking the koolaid, but at least it’s not laced with anything.

There are many ways to interpret Harley’s playoff performance — young dude, shooting went cold, high pressure hockey, etc — but I always took it as a player understanding the assignment. His focus on defense felt intentional, and as far as performance goes (not production), he was an animal. His 57.91 expected goal percentage at even-strength ranked 8th among playoff defenders who played at least 100 minutes, and his 5.41 total expected goal differential per 60 was 4th; on a team whose offense went limp in the postseason.

His maturity really shined when it mattered most, and to these biased eyes at least, found it even more impressive than his 15 regular season goals. What happens next is obviously up to Harley. I wouldn’t expect 15 goals again. Over 4000 defensemen since 2007, and he ranks 108th in defenseman goal scoring. Granted, his shooting percentage wasn’t absurd or anything, but I think there are enough layers — and enough ebbs — to see different parts of his offensive game show out, especially in the shadow of Heiskanen.

So yea, it’s a good deal for Dallas. Eventually it’ll become a great deal for Harley. But that’s the cost of business.