Habs 2010
Joined: May 2020
Posts: 1,523
Likes: 955
I see lots of armchair GM teams where people are giving him away for a late draft pick, why?
Even St. Louis was scratching him in favour of Harris and Barron for a bit. He has only played in 4 of the habs last 10 games, 3 of those were good games against NYI, EDM, COL, and in the poor effort against Ottawa he scored their only goal and was +1. Without Kovacevic in the lineup the team is trash defensively. My eye test tells me 6'5" 223 lbs right handed defenseman that can skate and handle the puck well is an asset to the team. Besides the eye test, here are some facts backed up by numbers:
1.) Harris, Guhle, Struble, and Xhekaj all put up their best numbers at 5v5 when they are paired with Kovacevic (pairs with at least 150 min together at 5v5 per NaturalStatTrick). That's over half of the current NHL defenseman on the roster, the only one that Kovacevic put up poor results with was Matheson.
Here's the data on that including 2022-23 for a larger sample (combining GF% to xGF% to combine results vs expected results):
Xhekaj - Kovacevic (113.59)
Struble - Kovacevic (111.09)
Guhle - Kovacevic (106.57)
Harris - Kovacevic (104.46)
Matheson - Savard (103.48)
Matheson - Barron (99.91)
Guhle - Barron (98.95)
Harris - Barron (93.33)
Xhekaj - Harris* (93.07)
Matheson - Guhle* (80.91)
Matheson - Kovacevic (78.03)
Guhle - Savard (70.96)
Harris - Savard (69.50)
2.) Kovacevic is also the habs best penalty killer, his GA and xGA / 60 is significantly better than the rest of the lineup.
Kovacevic: 7.57 GA/60, 7.92 xGA/60
Harris: 9.80 GA/60, 7.67 xGA/60
Guhle: 9.70 GA/60, 9.42 xGA/60
Matheson: 11.06 GA/60 , 10.46 xGA/60
Savard: 10.97 GA/60, 12.99 xGA/60
Barron: 14.54 GA/60, 8.51 xGA/60
So what gives? This guy looks like the ideal 3rd pair defenseman for any contender. He has an amazing contract (less than league minimum for this season on the next), he can play with almost any D partner, he is right handed (which is a need for almost every NHL team), he is a good penalty killer, and he has size. Why did St. Louis scratch him, and why are we trying to give him away for a late pick? I wouldn't accept anything less than a late 1st for Kovacevic.