Quote:
Originally Posted by doublejack
Maltby does suck at defense, and is only marginally better than a pylon. I've been advocating since last season that we axe Maltby and replace him with a much more productive player at the same cost, such as Abdelkader or Helm.
Let me back those claims up with some hard numbers. Maltby hasn't been a plus player since before the lockout. Over the past four seasons, he's a combined -35... on a team that is way to the positive side of the ledger. Maltby was +24 in the season before the lockout.
Maltby has also dropped from 33 points in the season before the lockout to totaling just 43 points in the four post lockout seasons. So his production had dropped by 66%. Oh, Maltby had 2 fewer points than Lilja in 18 more games.
What about hitting? Maltby's hits delivered over the past four seasons is 118, 125, 61, 64. So that's halved.
He's done. We're better off with Downey in that spot, because at least he runs people over and can serve as a punching bag.
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Not that I'm much of a fan of Maltby's play over the past couple years, but taking his stats at face value doesn't say nearly as much as you think it does. His +/- cratering has more to do with the fact that his line no longer scores than him "sucking at defense", and of course his hits have tailed off--his ice time has been slashed. On a per-minute basis I bet those numbers are a lot steadier.
Yes, he's old and a marginal player now, but hey, if we cut him and replace him with a minimum wage scrub, we save enough money to pay for all of... half of another minimum wage scrub! Halle-freakin-lujah. Our cap troubles are over!