Vancouver Canucks Player Season Evaluation: Dan Hamhuis
Was there a player more storied than Dan Hamhuis on the Vancouver Canucks roster last year?
Yes, the Vancouver Canucks have a lot to look for in this year’s offseason. The draft will bring an influx of high-end talent. Jim Benning‘s briefcase is full and ready for July 1st’s free agency frenzy. The IIHF World Championships and the new World Cup of Hockey are providing this offseason another dimension of intrigue.
But there is always room for improvement when the team finishes 28th overall in a 30-team league, is there not?
The Vancouver Canucks could not promise the fans a second consecutive post-season appearance under the new regime. They have, however, given the city enough storylines to analyze over the course of the offseason.
So here at The Canuck Way, we are going to sit down and grade the season that each of the Canucks has had in the 2015-16 NHL campaign. Were the Canucks really as bad as the standings showed at the end of the season? We shall find out, a player at a time.
Kicking off our 2016 Player Season Evaluation series, it is time to analyze the 2015-16 performance of Dan Hamhuis.
Bio: Dan Hamhuis
Height / Weight: 6’1″, 209lbs
Shoots: Left
Drafted: 12th Overall, 2001 NHL Entry Draft
Became a Canuck: July 2010, Unrestricted Free Agent
2015-16 Role: Top-4 Defense
2015-16 Contract: $4.5 million, Unrestricted Free Agent
In a season labeled as a year of transition, Dan Hamhuis provided a much-needed veteran presence on the Canucks blueline — when he was chewing food, that is. Though proving to be one of the team’s best defenceman when top defenceman Alex Edler went down late in the season, Hamhuis was sorely missed for about a dozen weeks after taking a rising Dan Boyle slap shot to his jaw.
We now all know how the story ended. The plan wasn’t for him to complete the season as a top defenceman in Vancouver. The plan was for him to rehab his jaw and to qualm all fears of a possible concussion so he could make himself a top rental option by the end of February. Well, that certainly didn’t happen the way the Canucks had imagined.
Nevertheless, Dan Hamhuis was one of the Canucks’ most valuable players, one who stayed so consistent throughout the entire season. He provided some much-needed leadership and resilience on the blueline that had to use youngsters Ben Hutton, Andrey Pedan, Nikita Tryamkin, and inconsistent veterans Matt Bartkowski and Yannick Weber.
Next: Dan Hamhuis: The Simple Metrics
Dan Hamhuis: The Simple Metrics
So how did Hamhuis do on the boxscores this season?
Dan Hamhuis 2015-16 Production
53 GP // 3 Goals // 10 Assists // 13 Points // Minus-2 // 28 PIM // 64 Hits // 72 Blocks
Dan Hamhuis saw his offensive production nearly half from last year’s totals. Despite being snakebitten badly the 2014-15 with a season-long goal drought, Hamhuis managed to score three goals this year, but with just ten assists.
He, however, stayed a lot more disciplined this season, reducing his penalty minutes by 16 minutes. However, he also did record 16 fewer hits than he did last year. This apparent lack of physicality is most likely due to his jaw injury forcing him to stay away from a few puck battles in the latter half of the season.
Hamhuis saw decent time on the powerplay as the point man when Alex Edler was out and Radim Vrbata refused to score goals as a point guard on the man advantage. He recorded a goal and two assists in 80 minutes of PP time. His penalty kill was a big part of the contribution to his team. He spent just over 150 minutes killing penalties this season, which is second only to the one and only Chris Tanev.
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And despite his injury and missing so much time, Hamhuis proved to be a dynamic penalty killer, leading the team in hits while shorthanded with 11. This stat shows that he is not afraid to engage in tight quarters and to use physicality to halt the offense. His 23 shots blocked while shorthanded is also just second to Tanev.
At age 33, Dan Hamhuis is not going to get better. In fact, his decline will likely be steeper thanks to the injury he sustained this past season. But comparing his play to that of 2014-15, Hamhuis, I think, was a more defensively sound.
For example, his 23 shots blocked shorthanded in 150 minutes of PK is a vast increase compared to his 14-15 totals, where he blocked ten shots in 132 minutes of PK work.
When he came back from his injury, he was at times the best Canuck on the ice and most of us thought he was increasing his trade value. When both Edler and Tanev went down, he became the defensive backbone that allowed Ben Hutton to work with Nikita Tryamkin.
What do the simple metrics say? Dan Hamhuis did his job pretty well. Nothing outstanding but doing what he gets paid to do — to defend.
Next: Dan Hamhuis: The Advanced Analytics
Dan Hamhuis: The Advanced Analytics
What do the numbers guys tell us about Hamhuis?
Impact on Primary Linemates
A player’s impact on linemates is shown through WOWY (With Or Without You), courtesy of Stats.HockeyAnalysis.com. WOWY can show what kind of impact a player has on his teammate by comparing the teammate’s performance with or without the player in consideration.
Matt Bartkowski | TOI | GF/60 | GA/60 | Goals For % | Corsi For %
With Hamhuis | 313:19 | 2.30 | 2.49 | 48.0% | 50.1%
Without Hamhuis | 999:53 | 1.62 | 2.76 | 37.0% | 44.6%
Hamhuis brought stability to Bartkowski’s game. All advanced stats categories shot up for Bartkowski when playing with Hamhuis. While this will not happen ever again in Canucks history (to have the two playing on the same pairing), Hamhuis did his job while paired with an offensively-inclined Bartkowski.
Notice that although Hamhuis improved Bartkowski’s Goals Against per 60 by just 0.17, the Goals For per 60 increased tremendously, by 0.68. This means that the presence of Hamhuis on the ice helped Bartkowski lead the offense. It could also be that Hamhuis was driving the offense himself, but that does not seem to be the case. Hamhuis was just a 1.67 Goals For per 60 when away from Bartkowski.
Hamhuis had four assists when playing with Bartkowski.
Yannick Weber | TOI | GF/60 | GA/60 | Goals For % | Corsi For %
With Hamhuis | 282:49 | 1.91 | 2.55 | 42.9% | 49.7%
Without Hamhuis | 397:45 | 1.51 | 2.41 | 38.5% | 47.3%
When playing to Yannick Weber’s side, Hamhuis produced some odd numbers. He had no points while playing with Weber and he somehow made the pairing more defensively vulnerable. This was not the case with Bartkowski.
Weber benefitted from Hamhuis’s presence in all other categories, however. Although Weber ended the year with no goals to show for as a pending UFA, Hamhuis did his share of helping Weber.
D Jake Bean — Draft Profile Faceoff — D Sean Day
I suppose that the incremental rise in the Goals Against per 60 category can be explained this way. While Hamhuis is not the worst of skaters, Bartkowski was able to bail him out a few times when the 33-year-old got caught trying to stand the opposition’s blueline. Bartkowski, as poorly as he may be received among some of us, does have good wheels. Weber, however, does not.
Hamhuis led the blueline in the Corsi For department. His +2.5 percent Relative Corsi For led all Canuck defenseman this past season and is fourth on the team after the Sedins and Jake Virtanen. He is undeniably a positive for this team at a 50.2 percent Corsi For.
Next: The Verdict: What's for Next Season?
The Verdict: What’s for Next Season?
Dan Hamhuis seems headed to unrestricted free agency as he and the management show now signs of negotiations. The Canucks would very much like to re-sign him to a short-term deal that will allow Dan to retire as a Canuck. But at what cost? At what terms? At what clauses?
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There are too many questions surrounding Hamhuis. Going into the offseason as a free agent, I imagine that the biggest contract for Hamhuis could be in the $4 million range for two years or at the $3 million range for up to three years with the Canucks. Would he get a bit more in the open market?
You bet.
But assuming he returns to Vancouver for the 2016-17 campaign, would these be realistic expectations for the aging defenseman who, frankly, was one of the most energetic Canucks to end the season? After all, he was the Bill Masterton nominee this season for the Canucks!
Dan Hamhuis 2016-17 Production
70 GP // 5 Goals // 15 Assists // 20 Points // Even P-M // 30 PIM // 70 Hits // 90 Blks
In a full season unhindered by injuries, Hamhuis would be a superb top-six option for the Canucks and a decent top-four option. But the way the blueline is shaping up right now, a roster spot would only mean a third-pairing responsibility for Hamhuis, probably with Luca Sbisa.
As for his 2015-16 performance, he does deserve tremendous credit for returning and leading the group alongside Ben Hutton. He proved himself still capable of top-four minutes and showed the Canucks that he would not be a burden should he return in leadership capacities.
He had a positive impact on defensive liabilities like Bartkowski and Weber. He, however, has had his offensive totals reduced significantly. Hamhuis did his job well but not much more. For this performance:
B+. . D. Vancouver Canucks. DAN HAMHUIS
Next: Going Big at Free Agency: Mikkel Boedker
And that is it for this edition of Canucks Player Season Evaluation! Next up? The most likely candidate to be Hamhuis’s partner should he return — defenseman Luca Sbisa.
*stats courtesy of HockeyReference.com, Stats.HockeyAnalysis.com, visuals thanks to OwnThePuck.