Also, for more reference, here is a breakdown of the seasons in which Redden made THN's top-50 players (which is really tough to do since they typically contain about 8 defensemen)
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Originally Posted by THN Yearbook 2006[B
]#32: Wade Redden: dependable at both ends of the ice, Redden has added an edge to his game[/B]…
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Originally Posted by THN Yearbook 2007
#16: Wade Redden: excellent two-way performer is dependable in his own zone and has the ability to lead the power play, an important commodity in today's game.
I will check to see if Jovanovski ever made these lists but I don't think he did.
For further depth I will check all my season previews for seasons where either player made the top-20 defensemen. I know both did multiple times.
We shouldn't take THN as gospel, not by a longshot, but this serves as a good snapshot of how they were viewed at the time by an objective 3rd party source. Let it stand in for us in the place of bickering and revision of history.
yes, young jovo was not nearly as highly regarded as young doughty or young phaneuf. potential-wise, he might have been comparable, but definitely not his actual performance in years 1-3.
his 96 playoff run i'd compare to young zhitnik or tinordi. not as much responsibility or dominance as those guys, but he put up some good offense for a developing player and had an eye-catching physical game that suggested a very high ceiling as a good offensive two-way guy who would grow into a playoff warrior.
after the trade, the canucks had three physical offensive d-men who all had defensive shortcomings. the other two were aucoin and mccabe. the thought was that jovo was the only one who had elite norris potential, so he was the one they kept and built around. in retrospect, jovo was the best one, but he was still in their tier, and wasn't a next-level rob blake/shea weber-type guy. the thinking was always that jovo would eventually put it all together and be a scott stevens in his washington years, but i think jovo's ceiling was always more a healthy al iafrate (who, incidentally, did peak as a second team all-star over housley and hatcher, who were both having historic offensive years).
edit: jovo and redden peaked at a similar level if you look at norris voting, but in my opinion, redden was a subtle player, something like a poor man's lidstrom, or at least a lesser desjardins, while jovo was flashy. as a canucks fan, i never thought jovo was our best or most important d-man. i would even use the dreaded word "overrated." redden may well have been underrated... that was my impression as a non-sens fan, anyway.
Last edited by vadim sharifijanov: 03-20-2012 at 12:46 PM.
yes, young jovo was not nearly as highly regarded as young doughty or young phaneuf. potential-wise, he might have been comparable, but definitely not his actual performance in years 1-3.
his 96 playoff run i'd compare to young zhitnik or tinordi. not as much responsibility or dominance as those guys, but he put up some good offense for a developing player and had an eye-catching physical game that suggested a very high ceiling as a good offensive two-way guy who would grow into a playoff warrior.
after the trade, the canucks had three physical offensive d-men who all had defensive shortcomings. the other two were aucoin and mccabe. the thought was that jovo was the only one who had elite norris potential, so he was the one they kept and built around. in retrospect, jovo was the best one, but he was still in their tier, and wasn't a rob blake/shea weber-type guy. the thinking was always that jovo would eventually put it all together and be a scott stevens in his washington years, but i think jovo's ceiling was always more a healthy al iafrate (who, incidentally, did peak as a second team all-star over housley and hatcher, who were both having historic offensive years).
edit: jovo and redden peaked at a similar level if you look at norris voting, but in my opinion, redden was a subtle player, something like a poor man's lidstrom, or at least a lesser desjardins, while jovo was flashy. as a canucks fan, i never thought jovo was our best or most important d-man. i would even use the dreaded word "overrated." redden may well have been underrated... that was my impression as a non-sens fan, anyway.
This is a can of worms but... How sure are you that he was better than McCabe?
jovo and redden peaked at a similar level if you look at norris voting, but in my opinion, redden was a subtle player, something like a poor man's lidstrom, or at least a lesser desjardins, while jovo was flashy. as a canucks fan, i never thought jovo was our best or most important d-man. i would even use the dreaded word "overrated." redden may well have been underrated... that was my impression as a non-sens fan, anyway.
Redden's passing and breakout skills may have been underrated. It was always recognized as the best part of his game, but he really was very good at it and it was extremely valuable to his team. Many non-Ottawa fans and casual fans may not have picked up on the effect that his puck-moving had on the team's puck possession and territorial possession.
I don't think Redden's defensive play was underrated. Early in his career, maybe. As a prospect and a young player, intelligence and defensive positioning were strengths in his game. He was arguably Ottawa's top defensive defenceman by the age of 21, leading a 109 point team in shorthanded TOI and playing against top lines with Jason York. But while most defencemen improve defensively with age, Redden did not. He never added a physical side to his game, and continued to commit occasional defensive gaffes.
By 2002-03, Chara and Phillips took over his role in playing against top lines, and Phillips took his role on the first unit penalty kill in 2005-06. Redden was able to have his best season in 2005-06 in part because he was playing fewer minutes and easier minutes at age 28 than he had in any season since he was 20.
Even after Chara left, Redden remained a second pairing defenceman at even strength and on the penalty kill. It was around this time, in the 2006-07 season, that his play started to decline for whatever reason, and his decline continued until he was a bottom pairing defenceman at age 32.
Like I said, this was a period of 23 games out of about 350 in his first four years. This represents a higher high but the lows were much, much lower.
Don't you mean 92 games?
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So, 2nd pairing defenseman >= 1st pairing defenseman??
I guess I'll just keep repeating myself: you're taking the TOI stat a bridge too far.
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Dude, these seasons are only “significant” in that they represent approximately the 10th-13th-best seasons of his career. A prime-vs-prime comparison should not include them. And if it did, and Redden’s early seasons were included, he’d still come out ahead, so that point is moot.
1996 was not the 13th best season of Jovanovski's career. And it's not a moot point if you're trying to put up a credible argument. It was an important season in his career and a case where he clearly stood a notch higher than Redden as a young player -- why pretend it didn't happen? Just acknowledge and move on.
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See, I know this is crazy, but coaches want to win. To win, you put your best players on the ice as often as possible. TOI for Florida’s defensemen indicates how they were viewed by the coaching staff. You can claim a 2nd pairing defenseman was a “big part” of a team’s “success”, but only if the 1st pairing defensemen were “bigger” parts.
Well, that last line just isn't true. There have been any number of cases where a 2nd pairing defenseman was more important than at least one of the 1st pairing guys. In fact, that probably applies to a number of NHL teams today. Just as an example, Ian White gets more minutes than Kronwall. Ask a Wings fan which is the more important player.
Also, Jovanovski was a rookie in 1996. It stands to reason that his TOI would have started low and then increased with time -- and also that his coaches might have thought twice about putting a rookie in the top pairing, regardless of his performance on the lower pairs. And finally, there's the simple fact that he was still able to alter games and playoff series from the lower pair. As the SI article notes, Svehla got the majority of ice time against Lindros but it was Jovanovski who made the greatest impact on the outcome of the series.
As usual, there's a lot to the discussion that isn't captured by the stats. Simply holding forth the TOI stat as the infallible end-all is not a realistic way to evaluate everything Jovanovski was contributing. It's helpful, sure, but there's still the matter of talking about why his numbers looked the way they did -- in historic terms, rather than broad inferences that happen to further our arguments.
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Regardless of all that, this is being turned into a massive piece of revisioninsm by a couple in this thread, yourself included.
Point out exactly what I have said that constitutes revisionism.
Redden's passing and breakout skills may have been underrated. It was always recognized as the best part of his game, but he really was very good at it and it was extremely valuable to his team. Many non-Ottawa fans and casual fans may not have picked up on the effect that his puck-moving had on the team's puck possession and territorial possession.
I don't think Redden's defensive play was underrated. Early in his career, maybe. As a prospect and a young player, intelligence and defensive positioning were strengths in his game. He was arguably Ottawa's top defensive defenceman by the age of 21, leading a 109 point team in shorthanded TOI and playing against top lines with Jason York. But while most defencemen improve defensively with age, Redden did not. He never added a physical side to his game, and continued to commit occasional defensive gaffes.
By 2002-03, Chara and Phillips took over his role in playing against top lines, and Phillips took his role on the first unit penalty kill in 2005-06. Redden was able to have his best season in 2005-06 in part because he was playing fewer minutes and easier minutes at age 28 than he had in any season since he was 20.
Even after Chara left, Redden remained a second pairing defenceman at even strength and on the penalty kill. It was around this time, in the 2006-07 season, that his play started to decline for whatever reason, and his decline continued until he was a bottom pairing defenceman at age 32.
you seem to have seen a lot more of the sens' redden-era than i have. i'm curious, could the argument be made that redden was more valuable to the team before spezza, because they didn't have any capable playmaking centers, so the PMD was paramount to get the puck to hossa, alfredsson, and havlat? (yashin played only one year in ottawa between '00 and the lockout).
i notice that redden is the icetime leader for two years before 2003, when he and chara are even for two years. this whole four-year stretch, redden is playing around 25 minutes a game. then after the lockout, spezza becomes a regular and chara plays 27 minutes, while redden goes down to 23.
again.. because of his cap hit. He's not down there because hes worse than Jovo. Have you even seen him play for the Whalers or are you speaking out of ignorance again?
you seem to have seen a lot more of the sens' redden-era than i have. i'm curious, could the argument be made that redden was more valuable to the team before spezza, because they didn't have any capable playmaking centers, so the PMD was paramount to get the puck to hossa, alfredsson, and havlat? (yashin played only one year in ottawa between '00 and the lockout).
i notice that redden is the icetime leader for two years before 2003, when he and chara are even for two years. this whole four-year stretch, redden is playing around 25 minutes a game. then after the lockout, spezza becomes a regular and chara plays 27 minutes, while redden goes down to 23.
I hadn't thought of it that way, but you may be right. The Pizza line didn't really didn't need a PMD in transition, as Spezza and Alfie were both strong puck carriers and distributors. Redden was probably more valuable when Radek Bonk and Todd White were the 1-2 "punch" at centre for Ottawa.
I would say Ottawa missed Redden's puck moving after he left in 2008, even if he wasn't the player he had been. They didn't replace that aspect of his game, and when combined with injuries slowing Alfie and Heatley, it killed Ottawa's transition game. The Gonchar signing was an attempt to replace Redden in the PMD role, but nobody really has done so until Karlsson this season.
again.. because of his cap hit. He's not down there because hes worse than Jovo. Have you even seen him play for the Whalers or are you speaking out of ignorance again?
for the previous five years, jovanovski had an identical cap hit to redden (on a team with severe financial problems, no less). and he remained in the NHL.
and jovo not only remains in the NHL today at a big cap number ($4.125 million), but got that contract this summer, and for FOUR years. what would redden have gotten as a UFA this summer? or last summer? or hell, the summer of 2009? i don't think it would be $16.5 million up to age 38.
i don't need to have seen redden play in the minors to know that jovo has aged significantly better.
for the previous five years, jovanovski had an identical cap hit to redden (on a team with severe financial problems, no less). and he remained in the NHL.
and jovo not only remains in the NHL today at a big cap number ($4.125 million), but got that contract this summer, and for FOUR years. what would redden have gotten as a UFA this summer? or last summer? or hell, the summer of 2009? i don't think it would be $16.5 million up to age 38.
i don't need to have seen redden play in the minors to know that jovo has aged significantly better.
Jovo got his contract because a) Florida needed to reach the cap floor and b) it was a good promotional signing to get a player from the old finalist team back to the city.
Redden wouldnt have brought this and he has a much higher cap hit.
Redden:
2008-09 $8,000,000 $8,000,000 $0 — $6,500,000
2009-10 $8,000,000 $8,000,000 $0 — $6,500,000
2010-11 $6,500,000 $6,500,000 $0 — $6,500,000
2011-12 $6,500,000 $6,500,000 $0 — $6,500,000
2012-13 $5,000,000 $5,000,000 $0 — $6,500,000
2013-14 $5,000,000 $5,000,000 $0 — $6,500,000
KNOWN CLAUSES (note: if player has been traded, clauses may no longer apply): NTC (can list eight teams he will not accept a trade to)
Jovo got his contract because a) Florida needed to reach the cap floor and b) it was a good promotional signing to get a player from the old finalist team back to the city.
Redden wouldnt have brought this and he has a much higher cap hit.
Redden:
2008-09 $8,000,000 $8,000,000 $0 — $6,500,000
2009-10 $8,000,000 $8,000,000 $0 — $6,500,000
2010-11 $6,500,000 $6,500,000 $0 — $6,500,000
2011-12 $6,500,000 $6,500,000 $0 — $6,500,000
2012-13 $5,000,000 $5,000,000 $0 — $6,500,000
2013-14 $5,000,000 $5,000,000 $0 — $6,500,000
KNOWN CLAUSES (note: if player has been traded, clauses may no longer apply): NTC (can list eight teams he will not accept a trade to)
that's all well and good. but my larger point is that this was jovo's last contract (with phoenix, which gained no material promotional benefit from having jovo on board):
at no point in those five years was there ever any suggestion that jovanovski should be waived and buried in the minors like redden and souray were.
and that phoenix team had a number of young up and coming defenseman (much like new york with staal, girardi, and del zotto). jovo was never buried to make room for keith yandle or to keep zbynek michalek, whom they lost in free agency.
phoenix also never traded jovo to a team like florida for a song, like toronto did with mccabe, even though phoenix was and remains in dire financial trouble and the league owns the team because they can't find a good owner to take on that financial risk.
so i don't think you can say that redden is the same player at this age as jovo is, but has the misfortune of being on an expensive contract so he has to play in the AHL. jovo never did, and he had the same cap hit.
that's all well and good. but my larger point is that this was jovo's last contract (with phoenix, which gained no material promotional benefit from having jovo on board):
at no point in those five years was there ever any suggestion that jovanovski should be waived and buried in the minors like redden and souray were.
and that phoenix team had a number of young up and coming defenseman (much like new york with staal, girardi, and del zotto). jovo was never buried to make room for keith yandle or to keep zbynek michalek, whom they lost in free agency.
phoenix also never traded jovo to a team like florida for a song, like toronto did with mccabe, even though phoenix was and remains in dire financial trouble and the league owns the team because they can't find a good owner to take on that financial risk.
so i don't think you can say that redden is the same player at this age as jovo is, but has the misfortune of being on an expensive contract so he has to play in the AHL. jovo never did, and he had the same cap hit.
Difference between Phoenix and Rangers is huge in another way tho. If Phoneix would have buried Jovos contract in the minor it would have been the end for them. It would me a morally disaster. Not only would no player sign with the team but players would want to leave. Rangers dont have that problem as it is a financially stable team who can afford to pay Redden in the minors and aqcuire Richards and Gaborik. If Phoenix tried this they would pay Jovo money while bleeding finacially and losing whatever credibillity they had/have on the player market.
No, because it’s not the regular season that made them a Stanley cup finalist. That 92 point season was their best and represented only about the average of what Redden’s sens averaged in his first 4 seasons.
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I guess I'll just keep repeating myself: you're taking the TOI stat a bridge too far.
How about you don’t dodge the question. Is a 2nd pairing defenseman more valuable? If so, why doesn’t the coach put him on the ice more often since it would follow that they would have a greater likelihood of winning more games?
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1996 was not the 13th best season of Jovanovski's career. And it's not a moot point if you're trying to put up a credible argument. It was an important season in his career and a case where he clearly stood a notch higher than Redden as a young player -- why pretend it didn't happen? Just acknowledge and move on.
I will not acknowledge something that is false!
Jovanovski was just a good young defenseman riding the hype of being a 1st overall draft pick. He had a ton of work to do defensively and in the decision-making department. The scouting reports confirm this.
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Well, that last line just isn't true. There have been any number of cases where a 2nd pairing defenseman was more important than at least one of the 1st pairing guys. In fact, that probably applies to a number of NHL teams today. Just as an example, Ian White gets more minutes than Kronwall. Ask a Wings fan which is the more important player.
a) You’re talking about one season, White’s usually a sub-20-minute player besides two seasons on a poor Leaf team
b) You’re talking about a guy playing with Lidstrom, this makes the minutes easier for any player, you can see this with a lot of guys who played with legendary defensemen – Dallas Smith, Glen Wesley, Brad McCrimmon.
c) You’re talking about a 30 second difference, entirely the result of the difference in their PP time. The difference in value between two guys, if any, can really start to get blurred with those kind of margins. But Jovanovski was 2-6 minutes behind Murphy and Carkner. That doesn’t leave us a lot of wiggle room.
d) You’d be onto something if quality of competition was a factor (see Stevens/Niedermayer in 2000-2003) but Jovanovski was not the guy playing the tough minutes and killing penalties for Florida. It was Svehla at ES and Murphy/Carker on the PK. Jovanovski rarely killed a penalty in Florida until the 1999 season.
e) Show me an extended period of time (3+ years) where a clearly inferior player got better/tougher minutes than a clearly superior player, then you may have a point.
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Also, Jovanovski was a rookie in 1996. It stands to reason that his TOI would have started low and then increased with time -- and also that his coaches might have thought twice about putting a rookie in the top pairing, regardless of his performance on the lower pairs.
That is definitely possible, but
a) That doesn’t explain the 1997 and 1998 seasons
b) He ended up too far below Carker and especially Murphy in 1996 for that to be very probable.
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And finally, there's the simple fact that he was still able to alter games and playoff series from the lower pair. As the SI article notes, Svehla got the majority of ice time against Lindros but it was Jovanovski who made the greatest impact on the outcome of the series.
I wouldn’t treat SI’s opinion as gospel… would you? If I was Doug MacLean (the person whose opinion really matters here) and thought Jovanovski was having a bigger impact on Lindros and the series, I’d put him out on the ice more often, and more often against Lindros in particular. I would be a fool not to.
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As usual, there's a lot to the discussion that isn't captured by the stats. Simply holding forth the TOI stat as the infallible end-all is not a realistic way to evaluate everything Jovanovski was contributing. It's helpful, sure, but there's still the matter of talking about why his numbers looked the way they did -- in historic terms, rather than broad inferences that happen to further our arguments.
Come on man, don’t straw man me. OF COURSE Jovanovski was contributing. But that in no way separates him from Wade Redden’s early career.
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Point out exactly what I have said that constitutes revisionism.
Most recently:
Personally I'd consider Jovanovski's 96 to be quite easily better than any of Redden's first 3
Jovanovski's 1996 was better than anything in Redden's first three years. SI wasn't writing articles on the guy for nothing.
The scouting reports confirm that this is absolutely false. Following the 1996 season they give him a lot of benefit of the doubt given his age, but in 1997-2001 you get a clearer picture of what his time in Florida was all about. Do I believe 1996 was his best year in Florida? Hell no. It was just his most high-profile season. Read what was said about Redden in his first four years, then compare to what I’ll soon post about Jovanovski and you’ll see why I consider the above statement flat-out revisionism.
Have you once acknowledged that his big shot, big hitting style made him instantly more of a high profile player and that his defensive deficiencies were glossed over?
Prior to that:
If the stats don't fit the historical record, maybe the problem is with the stats.
The stats favour Redden greatly. The historical record (as I will show you in the scouting reports) also does nothing to help the case that Jovanovski was better as an NHL youngster. Therefore, the stats do fit the historical record. For you to say that the stats don’t fit the historical record is to change the historical record to match your perspective, since the stats are what they are. Therefore, I call this statement revisionism.
I remember a huge amount of hype and positive reviews in 1996. The consensus was that he was one of the next great defensemen -- basically that he would fill the role that Chris Pronger actually ended up filling. He was very, very impactful in that Finals run
It’s a horrible example and the word “revisionism” is too strong for it. But it’s misleading. It contains a whole bunch of “well obviously!” and a stretching of the truth.
Of course there was a huge amount of hype and positive reviews. The guy was drafted 1st overall less than two years prior. That he was playing and going deep into the playoffs, meant that he would be under the microscope. Maybe the consensus really was that he was one of the next great defensemen a’la Pronger – but why wouldn’t that be the case? What 1st overall picks come in at 19 and make everyone immediately say “aww, he’s not really going to be that good”?
What’s misleading about that statement is, just because the consensus was that he was one of the next great defensemen a’la Pronger, doesn’t mean he was showing it in his play circa 1996. It can easily be nothing more than a reflection of what was thought of him on draft day 1994, seemingly fulfilled because look, now here he is in the NHL making big hits!
As for the word “impactful” – this is misleading because to consider 2nd pairing defenseman “impactful” is to stretch the meaning of the word. He wasn’t more impactful than the first pairing defensemen and probably Carkner, of course the goalie, Mellanby and most likely a few other forwards. If you can be the 7th-8th-most important player on your team and be “impactful” in your mind, then we just define the term differently.
Do I think Redden was necessarily “impactful” in his first three years either? No, he probably ranked right around the same spot on his own team. As I’ve said, these are his 10th-12th best seasons, not his “prime” for comparison purposes. Just like Jovanovski.
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Originally Posted by Hobnobs
Jovo got his contract because a) Florida needed to reach the cap floor and b) it was a good promotional signing to get a player from the old finalist team back to the city.
Oh dear lord. He’s signed for 3 more years at 4 Mil and is a 16-minute player already.
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at no point in those five years was there ever any suggestion that jovanovski should be waived and buried in the minors like redden and souray were.
and that phoenix team had a number of young up and coming defenseman (much like new york with staal, girardi, and del zotto). jovo was never buried to make room for keith yandle or to keep zbynek michalek, whom they lost in free agency.
phoenix also never traded jovo to a team like florida for a song, like toronto did with mccabe, even though phoenix was and remains in dire financial trouble and the league owns the team because they can't find a good owner to take on that financial risk.
The thing with the Rangers and Leafs was, they just wanted the cap space. They are wealthy teams that can spend money and just had to get that player off the cap. With Redden, the minors was an option. With McCabe it wasn’t, so he was traded for very little. (this is another story but it says little about McCabe as a player, that poisonous core of players and their “culture of losing” had to be disbanded that year, it was time for a fire sale)
If NYR weren’t a cap team they’d just play him and get the contract over with, but they want to spend 6M and get 6M worth of performance so burying him was the only way.
Jesus, am I really supposed to respond to that wall of text?
- It's already been asserted that he was better in the regular season than the playoffs, so how can you justify cutting out his entire regular season? That's just bending over backwards to minimize what was clearly a strong season.
- I don't need scouting reports, advanced stats or SI to substitute for my own memory. Based on the way you're writing, it doesn't sound like you actually saw Jovanovski first hand in 1996... am I reading that correctly?
- Accuse me of revisionism all you like. I don't have a horse in this race. I'm not a Jovo fan, a Panthers fan, a Canucks fan... or an ATD participant. I have no reason to twist or fabricate arguments.
I am just telling you what I and other people clearly remember about Jovanovski's early career, because his strong start is highly relevant to talking about his career overall. If you disagree because you like Redden more, that's fine. But don't act like it's an open and shut case, or that other people's memories of these players are going to be overruled here.
jesus, am i really supposed to respond to that wall of text?
- it's already been asserted that he was better in the regular season than the playoffs, so how can you justify cutting out his entire regular season? That's just bending over backwards to minimize what was clearly a strong season.
- i don't need scouting reports, advanced stats or si to substitute for my own memory. Based on the way you're writing, it doesn't sound like you actually saw jovanovski first hand in 1996... Am i reading that correctly?
- accuse me of revisionism all you like. i don't have a horse in this race. I'm not a jovo fan, a panthers fan, a canucks fan... Or an atd participant. I have no reason to twist or fabricate arguments.
I am just telling you what i and other people clearly remember about jovanovski's early career, because his strong start is highly relevant to talking about his career overall. if you disagree because you like redden more, that's fine. But don't act like it's an open and shut case, or that other people's memories of these players are going to be overruled here.
Shouldnt you question his age too or is that only when someone disagrees with you?
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Jesus, am I really supposed to respond to that wall of text?
- It's already been asserted that he was better in the regular season than the playoffs, so how can you justify cutting out his entire regular season? That's just bending over backwards to minimize what was clearly a strong season.
- I don't need scouting reports, advanced stats or SI to substitute for my own memory. Based on the way you're writing, it doesn't sound like you actually saw Jovanovski first hand in 1996... am I reading that correctly?
- Accuse me of revisionism all you like. I don't have a horse in this race. I'm not a Jovo fan, a Panthers fan, a Canucks fan... or an ATD participant. I have no reason to twist or fabricate arguments.
Memories can be wrong or hyperbole. The fact is that Jovo was an impactful player in his first playoffs for being a rookie and a third pairing guy. The rest is hype. He had a great game here and there but he wasnt even in the top-10 of panthers most valueable, important or impactful players during that run.
again.. because of his cap hit. He's not down there because hes worse than Jovo. Have you even seen him play for the Whalers or are you speaking out of ignorance again?
He isn't even playing in the minors this year at all. He isn't even playing anywhere and I double checked on hockeyreference.com. Redden is not an NHL caliber player anymore, I don't know what else to tell you. If he were, he'd be there. It is that simple, cap hit or not cap hit. Scott Gomez is overpaid and went a year without a goal and even he has a spot in the NHL
He isn't even playing in the minors this year at all. He isn't even playing anywhere and I double checked on hockeyreference.com. Redden is not an NHL caliber player anymore, I don't know what else to tell you. If he were, he'd be there. It is that simple, cap hit or not cap hit. Scott Gomez is overpaid and went a year without a goal and even he has a spot in the NHL
He is most definitely playing for the Whale this season, unless that was a different Redden wearing #6 for the Whale when they came to St. John's a couple of months ago.
He is most definitely playing for the Whale this season, unless that was a different Redden wearing #6 for the Whale when they came to St. John's a couple of months ago.
I don't know then, it doesn't say anything about this season on his profile. Either way, he's in the minors. Shouldn't that be enough said? There is no buzz for him in the NHL at all. I'm a hockey guy and even I wasn't aware he was still apparently playing in the AHL. That probably should tell you he's finished. I mean, Mike Keane played in the AHL at the end of his career, probably just for the love of the game but I certainly don't think he'd be there if he were good enough to crack another NHL roster. It isn't something you should be using to boost Redden at all. He's going to be 35 years old.
I don't know then, it doesn't say anything about this season on his profile. Either way, he's in the minors. Shouldn't that be enough said? There is no buzz for him in the NHL at all. I'm a hockey guy and even I wasn't aware he was still apparently playing in the AHL. That probably should tell you he's finished. I mean, Mike Keane played in the AHL at the end of his career, probably just for the love of the game but I certainly don't think he'd be there if he were good enough to crack another NHL roster. It isn't something you should be using to boost Redden at all. He's going to be 35 years old.
Probably true, although he's definitely done for a different reason than Mike Keane. Guys of Keane's caliber never stick around in the NHL at that age, not even for the Red Wings. Conversely, I doubt Redden's much worse than his peers such as Kaberle or Spacek at the same age, and their definitely lucky (maybe not financially lucky) not to have signed contracts right at the end of their primes that severely overpaid them going forward (they're still overpaid, just not bury-in-the-minors overpaid).
Probably true, although he's definitely done for a different reason than Mike Keane. Guys of Keane's caliber never stick around in the NHL at that age, not even for the Red Wings. Conversely, I doubt Redden's much worse than his peers such as Kaberle or Spacek at the same age, quo and their definitely lucky (maybe not financially lucky) not to have signed contracts right at the end of their primes that severely overpaid them going forward (they're still overpaid, just not bury-in-the-minors overpaid).
Probably better not to make that comparison. "Much worse" than those guys would be... horrible.
