If you missed the write-up on Marian Gaborik last time check it out right here.
Matt Greene #2
Age: 31
Contract Status: $2.5MM AAV through 2017-18
Stats:
Other stats:
PIMs: 47
ES TOI avg: 12:04
SH TOI avg: 2:41
Corsi for: 58.4%
Goals for relative: 6.9%
Zone starts O/N/D - 36/37/27%
His season
The aging defensive specialist, Matt Greene, has another year rife with injuries and troubles staying in the starting lineup. To be fair to the 31 year old veteran though, at full health and on any other team he is likely an every night starter. However, due to his health issues and a very deep defensive group the Kings were able to shelf Greene from time to time if he needed it both performance wise or health wise.
Despite the aforementioned factors, and the annoying habit he has of taking some ill-advised penalties from time to time, Greene is effective at his job and he was solid during the cup run. He is a meat and potatoes defensive specialist. There is no way around it. Greene gives very little on the offensive side of things, has very little speed, but he does his job defensively when asked to do so. This is, however, part and parcel the Kings backing off giving Greene difficult minutes. If you look at the zone starts that Greene worked in, in both the regular and postseason, they were fairly risk free situations. If you compare the zone start slash line above to Willie Mitchell or Robyn Regehr you can see the difference. Mitchell had a line of 31/33/35 O/N/D zone starts, while Regehr held a 33/35/30 line. This kind of trend may or may not continue on next season, but we will get to that in the moving forward section. As you can see though of the three shutdown defensemen Greene was protected the most. Nonetheless the Kings were rewarded for that protection. He is a strong penalty killer and a solid shot blocker and the Kings tried to keep him out of the firing line as best they could. Some of this may have been attributed to his health and lack of game shape at times, but the trend of cutting down his quality minutes has been progressively happening for the last several seasons.
You get what you get from Greene. He is always willing to give a big hit, lay out for the team, and he is a strong voice in the Kings locker room. Who can forget the alternate captain attempting to calm Drew Doughty down in the finals after receiving a blow from the butt end of Chris Kreider's stick. Having a player like that can sometimes not be valued in any sort of statistical category. This is a large part in why after the conclusion of the Kings' season Greene was signed to a four-year extension. Is it a semi-risky contract? Yea I'd say so, but for what no. 2 brings to the table both on and off the ice the Kings felt perfectly comfortable in locking him up for another decently lengthy contract.
And let's be honest, Matt Greene gives us more "Warrior" moments than any other player on the team. I mean, really.
Moving Forward
Greene begins the first of a four-year extension this coming season, and hopefully he can stay healthy for more than a third of it this time around. This seems to be the growing risk with the defenseman, as his last two seasons have been hampered with back problems, causing him to miss 87 of the last 130 regular season games over the course of two years. If he stays healthy he is definitely a serviceable 5-6 defenseman.
The other question here is will he be used as such moving forward? The Kings parted ways with Willie Mitchell, and now have a shutdown group that includes Regehr, Greene and potentially Brayden McNabb. With a cut in quality minutes being the general trend of Matt Greene's career, he may be forced to pick up more minutes against tougher opponents next season. Between Regehr, Greene, and McNabb, the Kings are going to have to balance out the zone starts a little more in Mitchell's absence. We will see how the veteran defenseman reacts and how the Kings react next year. The four-year contract was touch longer than many expected, but again, the Kings must have felt comfortable moving forward with that in the books. In fairness at 2.5 a season it isn't the worst contract value wise.
There isn't much to think about with Greene moving forward outside of will he stay healthy and in the lineup? With a completely injury free lineup the Kings defensive group looks as follows:
Doughty-Muzzin
Voynov-Regehr
Martinez - Greene
McNabb/Schultz?
You have to wonder if Greene will be in the lineup consistently enough to justify a term of four years given the competition, his age, and one-dimensional nature of his game. We will see what comes in the future.
As for this year it's hard to give Greene anything less than a C or more than a B in my eyes. He battled through injury and inconsistency and ultimately was a valuable piece of a winning puzzle for the second time in three seasons. His penalty killing, shot blocking, and leadership are valued highly in the Kings locker room and even if his on-ice play slips at times the coaching staff seems to know how to use him best. I think the real questions will be asked of Matt Greene next season.
Final Grade -
C+/B- (You could go either way depending on how sentimental you are to him...and or how much you like blood.)
---------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------
For those wondering, Dwight King's salary arbitration is to take place on August 1st if the two parties cannot meet in agreement prior to that date. More is expected to come of that shortly.
Follow me on twitter for news and notes about the Kings and the NHL
Los Angeles Kings Blogger • 
Join the Discussion:
»