A week ago, the chances of the Tampa Bay Lightning signing the top name on the free agent market were as likely as finding a real pirate at Gasparilla. Yet, on July 1st, they announced that they signed forward Jake Guentzel to a 7-year contract with an AAV of $9 million. Technically, Guentzel never made it to the free agent market as general manager Julien BriseBois traded a third-round pick for his rights on Sunday.
Guentzel, 29-years-old, is expected to fill in on the top line with Steven Stamkos having departed the franchise for free agency. The Nebraska native brings an impressive resume with him to Tampa. In 520 games with the Pittsburgh Penguins and Carolina Hurricanes, Guentzel has scored 227 goals while adding 264 assists. The left-hand shot can play a little center, but will most likely see time on the wing with Brayden Point and Nikita Kucherov.
Playing with future hall-of-famers won’t be anything new for Guentzel as he spent most of his tenure in Pittsburgh alongside Sidney Crosby. He started his career off with a bang in 2016-17 as he was part of the Stanley Cup winning Penguins squad, contributing 33 points in 40 games during the regular season while adding a league-leading 13 goals in the postseason run, including 5 game-winning goals.
Of those 13 goals that he scored during that magical run, 11 of them were at even-strength, which has been a trend in his career, and one of the most intriguing aspects that he adds to the Lightning. Of his 227 career goals, 78% of them (or 177 for those that don’t like math) of them have come at even-strength. For a team that relied on their very dangerous power play a little too much last season, injecting some 5v5 scoring into the line-up will be a benefit. The Lightning were 14th last season with 171 5v5 goals and struggled to generate a lot of consistent offense, especially early in the season, when the numbers on the ice were equal.
Guentzel will also give them a little net front offense as Hockey Viz’s heat map shows here.
Seeing that much red in dangerous scoring areas will make any coach’s day. The eight-year vet isn’t scared to go to the front of the net and create chances. Natural Stat Trick had him at 97 Individual High-Danger chances last year, which was good for 8th in the league. Brandon Hagel was tops on the Bolts with 71. Getting in front of the net also helped him create a little chaos, especially in the form of rebounds as Guentzel was credited with 41 rebounds created (7th in the league). Again, the best number put up by a Bolt wasn’t even close as Nikita Kucherov was credited with 27.
All Three Zones shows that Guentzel isn’t just a one-trick pony and rates fairly well in a lot of offensive categories.
He can create chances off the rush and through cycling the puck, but the one line that stands out is his ability to deflect pucks.
With the way the Lightning like to push the puck back to their blueline and shoot, having a player that can not only get to the front of the net, but also has the hand-eye coordination to make those types of deflections will be a big asset on offense.
Defensively, well, Jake probably isn’t winning any Selke’s during this contract. That is kind of the odd factor in this deal. With Mr. BriseBois stressing the importance of limiting pucks going into their net, he signed a guy that isn’t the strongest in that regard. Much like he did with his trade deadline pickups, the Lightning GM is hoping that more play in the offensive zone helps keep the goals against down.
To his credit, that defensive rating from Evolving Hockey has gone up year over year for Guentzel and it is easier for some forwards to improve their defense as their career goes on. Learning how to put the puck in the net is a lot harder to find.
Without a doubt, no matter what Guentzel does in a Lightning uniform, he will be compared to Steven Stamkos since he’s essentially filling The Captain’s spot on the roster. While it’s an unfair burden to place on the former Penguin, he will have to live with it during his days here. The good news is that, for at least the early part of the contract, he should be able to hold his own.
That is a three-year comparison of the two players and as it shows, Guentzel has been pretty darn effective at even-strength. It’s always weird comparing players who play in different systems, but with both players having over 3,000 minutes of even-strength playing time over the last three seasons, it’s as close to an apples-to-apples comparison as you can get.
It’s been a long, long time since the Lightning have made this big of a splash with a free agent forward. For Mr. BriseBois and his predecessor, Steve Yzerman, long-term, big-money contracts have been reserved mostly for in-house players. In order to find a true unrestricted free agent signing longer than three years you have to go all the way back to Valtteri Filppula who signed a five-year, $25 million deal in July of 2013. Every other long-term deal the duo has signed has been with a player that had played for the Lightning in the previous season.
For JBB part of the reason that has been the case is that he has rarely had enough cap room to compete on the open market due to the flat cap and the lengthy extensions he and Mr. Yzerman handed out. This was really the first summer that the current GM had the room to make a splash and he certainly did.
Will it be the deal that keeps the Lightning in their Stanley Cup window or will it be an albatross contract weighing them down for years to come? For that answer we’ll have to wait not only for this season, but the seasons to come.
