The Pittsburgh Penguins need to find top six help. That isn’t the easiest thing to find, but it doesn’t mean they won’t try. Previously
I identified two potential trade targets for Pittsburgh in Patrick Sharp and Alex Semin.
Most pathways to find top six help are going to have some cons attached and that is certainly the case with the examples above.
Today I will take a look at a potential UFA target the Penguins could take a look at. Today I will review the pros and cons of pursuing Los Angeles Kings pending UFA Justin Williams.
Justin Williams has been a mainstay of the Los Angeles Kings top six forward grouping since the last time Pittsburgh won the Stanley Cup. He is one of the best possession players in the entire league and works well with other skilled players.
Before Olli Maatta went down for the year there were rumblings about a potential Justin Williams for Paul Martin trade. The health of the Penguins defense corp. poured cold water on that potential swap during the regular season.
Los Angeles would probably like to retain the services of Justin Williams but they have some cap issues moving forward and probably don’t have the cap space to keep him around in the short or long term. Tyler Toffoli is an RFA this year and he is due to make some money. The Kings will have to work to get Slava Voynov’s cap hit off the books, but even if successful they will be looking to re-sign Andrej Sekera which will cost even more. And most importantly after next year Anze Kopitar will be a UFA and he is going to make a LOT of money. The Dustin Brown and Mike Richards extensions are going to start to bite Los Angeles as they try to keep their championship core long term.
With the reasons above you can see why Williams will probably hit the market.
So what kind of player has Justin Williams been?
His numbers are terrific. He is excellent at both shot generation as well as shot suppression. These numbers are how Justin Williams gets his “clutch” reputation. Very good players who consistently put themselves in good situations will eventually get good results. Since Justin Williams is almost always pushing play towards the other team’s goal and away from his own he gets more cracks at scoring important goals. It isn’t “clutch” as much as it is consistent above average play.
Now there is an argument to be made that playing with other great players will inflate his totals and that would be fair, but his impact on his teammates is overwhelmingly positive. He is far from a passenger.
Justin Williams has outperformed every role the Kings have thrown him into and that is impressive because a lot of his Kings sample size has him joining up with Anze Kopitar playing against top competition.
There is a noticeable decline. He isn’t knocking it out of the park like he used. However, he is still outperforming the roles that he has been given in recent years. Remember it isn’t a bad to be at zero. It means that player has been given the appropriate role for what is expected out of them.
So to recap Justin Williams is an elite possession (one of the best in the NHL), he can handle tough roles, he is able to play with high caliber players, and he will most likely be available. So what is the problem?
Age. He will be 34 years old when the NHL’s 2015-16 season kicks off in October. I mentioned at the very start of this blog there would be some cons and this is the con.
Pittsburgh cannot be making significant investments into players who are in their mid-thirties. They have already done that with Chris Kunitz and Pascal Dupuis. They don’t have wiggle room for any more of those contracts.
The only way this signing makes sense is if the term is extremely short like the deal Christian Ehrhoff received last summer. Given that Williams would be hitting the open market with multiple teams showing interest he has the leverage in this situation. He has also been well under market value for the past number of years with a cap hit of only 3.65M.
Ultimately I do not believe this to be a probable option for Pittsburgh. That said the Penguins should definitely gauge his interest and what kind of contract he is looking for.
It never hurts to ask and you can’t get lucky if you don’t try.
Thanks for reading!
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