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Friday afternoon the Calgary Flames officially bought out the final two years of Troy Brouwer's contract.
While it was somewhat surprising the team elected to pull the plug, it's easy to see why they did.
Simply put, the 32-year-old was a complete disaster in every game state regardless of which numbers you use to tell the story.
Let's take a closer look at just how bad things were.
5v5 production
Brouwer hasn't been an efficient 5v5 scorer for a long time but the wheels *really* fell off when he signed in Calgary. Brouwer managed just 25 points in 150 games over the last two seasons. For perspective, Dominic Moore, Joel Ward, Matt Stajan, and Scottie Upshall recorded more points during that time despite fewer games played and less ice to work with.
If the raw totals aren't cringe-worthy enough, the rate stats certainly will be.
Brouwer averaged .90 points per 60 minutes played. That ranked him 331st among 343 forwards to play at least 1,000 minutes from 2016-18. Some of the many to pile up points at a more efficient clip include Lukas Sedlak, Luke Glendening, Colton Sissons, Torrey Mitchell, Ryan Reaves and Matt Martin.
It's never good when a player pulling in $4.5 million annually ranks below those guys in key offensive categories.
5v5 on-ice impact
To say that Brouwer weighed the team down would be a massive understatement.
Be it Corsi For%, Goals For% or Expected Goals For%, the Flames fared significantly better across the board when he was not on the ice.
The same can be said about anyone Brouwer shared the frozen pond with. This past season, for example, Brouwer logged at least 50 minutes of 5v5 ice with 16 different players.
Only one of them – Matt Stajan – posted a higher Corsi For% with Brouwer and the difference (.11) was marginal. I don't think that is a coincidence.
PP production
At times his play was somewhat respectable on the man advantage but, over the full tenure, it was far from good.
Brouwer averaged 3.8 points per 60 on the PP. Among seven Flames to log 200+ power play minutes during Brouwer's two-year tenure, only Sam Bennett registered points at a lesser clip.
Bennett is one of the very worst power play performers in the league so outproducing him was a low bar to clear.
Perhaps the most telling statistic of how things went on the #BrouwerPlay: he scored five goals in 267 minutes despite spending most of his time a) alongside Johnny Gaudreau, Sean Monahan, Mark Giordano, etc. and; b) in front of the net collecting garbage.
Even the likes of Jussi Jokinen, Leo Komarov, Radim Vrbata and Loui Eriksson scored more than Brouwer.
Penalty Killing
Though Brouwer played a lot on the PK, he wasn't good at killing penalties. Far from it.
Of the five Flames forwards to log 150+ minutes while down a man, you could make a strong case he was the worst.
Brouwer ranked last at preventing shot attempts and expected goals. In terms of actual goals, only Matt Stajan fared worse.
Conclusion
I disliked the Brouwer signing from the get-go – there were a lot of red flags – but even I never expected things to get this bad, this fast.
By all accounts, Brouwer was one of the worst players in the league as a member of the Flames and he did a lot more harm than good.
Given that, there was no way to justify keeping him around another year – especially given the cost of doing so.
The Flames did the right thing.
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