|
The Case For Re-Signing Eric Gryba |
|
|
|
|
|
It’s early August, the busiest signing period of the off-season has come and passed, and Edmonton still has a weak defense. That weakness is not just when it comes to high end talent, but also depth, and specifically focused on the right side of the ice. If we resign ourselves to the probability that the Oilers are not adding a top-flight player in the top 4, then what’s left is getting that depth sorted out. I’m going to make the case for re-signing Eric Gryba.
Gryba doesn’t generally get a lot of support from the fancystats community, or at least not the ones I’m familiar with. However, I’m in his corner as far as the 3rd pairing goes. I’d be willing to wager that part of the reason he doesn’t get a lot of traction is because the stay-at-home type of defender in its traditional sense has been picked apart. Hitting, shot blocking, “grittiness” are all great, but all things being equal I’d rather have a defender who helped the team control the puck so much that he did less of those things.
The 6’4”, 228 pound Gryba is very much a physical, meat and potatoes style of defender. Nothing flashy, just smashy enough to like but not quite mobile enough to love. Hence, not a lot of support. That said, Edmonton is starving for right-shot defenders and beggars can’t be choosers. Considering the spot he would be challenging for in camp would be 6 or 7 D then I’m not sure there’s a lot of risk at signing him for close to the 1.25 million he was making a year ago.
Just to review what Edmonton’s list of NHL caliber (or NHL Adjacent) Defenders look like, it’s as follows:
Left Shot
Klefbom
Sekera
Davidson
Nurse
Oesterle
Reinhart
Right Shot
Larsson
Fayne
So, you can see that even with the addition of Larsson this team is still forced to go with a Lefty-Lefty pairing on the 3rd unit if it stays the course. There’s just not enough RHD to go around. That’s not necessarily the worst thing in the world. For example, if Edmonton opened camp tomorrow I would love to see Nurse-Davidson as a 3rd pair to see how both fare against lower levels of competition.
However, if the Oilers were to re-sign a player like Eric Gryba, then they have a lot of options. They could still use the Nurse-Davidson lefty-lefty combo if they wanted, or they could get very conservative with Nurse, go Davidson-Gryba, and assign Nurse to the AHL. I think a lot of Nurse fans would be upset, and I wouldn’t be overly pleased myself, but giving him 25 minutes a night in the AHL with lots of PP time isn’t going to sewer Nurse’s career.
Getting back to those fancy stats, Eric Gryba wasn’t a drag on possession or even scoring. He kept things relatively even as an Oiler and for a 3rd pairing guy that’s really all you can ask for. Gryba had a 49.5% Corsi For percentage with a positive CF% Relative to his teammates. He was 3rd on the Oilers defense in Goals For percentage 5v5. Heck, he even posted a higher Points per 60 minutes than Sekera (0.44 P/60).
As far as that potential Davidson-Gryba pairing goes, last year they played 283:28 together 5v5. Davidson was Gryba’s most frequent partner. On the ice together they controlled shot attempts very, very well (especially remembering he played for the Oilers). Here is a list of Gryba’s most common partners and the CF% they posted together:
Davidson – Gryba: 283:28 mins, 53.7% CF
Reinhart – Gryba: 157:13 mins, 44.5% CF
Nurse – Gryba: 95:26 mins, 48.5% CF
Ference – Gryba: 60:12 mins, 45.4% CF
Just looking at his top 4 partners it becomes obvious the Oilers didn’t do him any favours. These are all players at the very beginning or very end of their NHL careers. It’s nice to see that when he played with Davidson the duo fared extremely well together.
Signing Gryba means giving up on that PP specialist. It means the commitment is made to go with Klefbom, Sekera, and one of the unproven remainders to play the point on the PP. However, it also adds a genuine NHL player, albeit a low-end one, who can add depth to the position for very little money. He’s big, he’s physical, he knows the coaching staff, he’s relatively effective in his role, and he’s going to be cheap. But most importantly he will give Edmonton the chance to develop their young defenders slowly.
That’s the case for signing Eric Gryba. I’m not suggesting that it should happen today or even that it’s better than taking a risk on Wisniewski. I’m just suggesting that the Oilers could do much worse than adding this kind of depth to their blueline.
Follow me on Twitter @Archaeologuy
Edmonton Oilers Blogger • 
Join the Discussion:
»