The Bruins just announced they signed Torey Krug to a 4-year, $5.25mil/yr extension:
#NHLBruins sign Torey Krug to 4-year contract worth an AAV of $5.25 million: https://t.co/S6o4uYOt22 pic.twitter.com/TJtNiSp4eT
— Boston Bruins (@NHLBruins) June 30, 2016
As the Bruins mentioned, Krug scored a career-high 44 points last season, which ranked him 9th among NHL defensemen. I’m vehemently anti-smurf, but the Bruins took a chance on an undrafted, smurfy defenseman and ended up catching lightning in a bottle. You can say his minutes are sheltered or you can say he’s been effectively deployed. Whichever it is, he’s clearly part of the solution.
I’m a believer and I’m looking forward to at least four more years of goals, goals, goals!
Oh, and you can buy the Goals Goals Goals tshirt from Sully’s Brand here.
I’m on board for more Krug.
I feel like we didn’t really overpay, so that’s a plus.
Regarding the sheltering, it is worth noting that he was far less sheltered last season than the previous year (OZ start from 60% to 55%) and yet his relative Corsi and Fenwick both improved. Promising signs in my eyes.
I have to agree on this. He spent too much time on the ice to truly be sheltered. His ATOI was actually bordering on top pairing numbers.
In fact, I did an analysis, and found that if you did a rollup of all D-men in the league, and scooped up the top minutes per team, Krug was actually the very last guy in ATOI to fall within ‘top60 D-man minutes’. (there were actually more than 60 D-men in that group because i had to account for players with games played < 82).
There's obviously some skew in there because of 5-on-5 time vs OT vs PP vs PK. And who was he paired with? No-one special. Usually Seids or Quaider in 5-on-5. The dude is a solid 2nd pairing guy.
According to http://www.nhl.com, Krug was 70th in ES TOI/G among defensemen with ≥ 60 GP last season. He rises to 56th if you narrow it down to those with ≥70 GP.
Very much agreed, and I hope this bodes well for the similarly-sheltered Chiller.