New York Rangers Report Card: Marc Staal
When it comes to assessing players on the New York Rangers, there is one who elicits the widest range of responses. The coach values him as a veteran leader while most fans consider Marc Staal to be an overpaid defenseman who is past his prime.
Marc Staal: Grade C
As we work our way through the New York Rangers roster, reviewing the past season and assigning grades, Marc Staal is a conundrum. From an advanced statistical point of view, he was a disaster. From the point of his value to the team, the intangibles raise his grade.
His season
At age 32, Marc Staal is old for the NHL. He’s a veteran of 944 regular season and playoff games, all with the Rangers. He’s suffered concussions and nearly lost vision in one eye, yet in the last six seasons, the fewest number of games he has played is 72. He has been a durable, reliable presence on the Rangers blue line, but there is one undeniable fact, he is slowing down.
That has become a factor in his ability to play in the NHL. His possession stats were not good as he finished the season with a Corsi of 42.5%. What’s worse is that playing with Staal dropped the Corsi for every other defenseman on the team.
Staal played the most minutes (668) with Neal Pionk. With Staal, Pionk’s 5v5 Corsi was 41.42%. Pionk played 495 minutes with other partners and his Corsi increased to 47.61%. Tony DeAngelo played 389 minutes paired with Staal and had a Corsi rating of 43.67%. Without Staal he played 599 minutes and his Corsi was 47.31%. In fewer minutes, there was the same result for Kevin Shattenkirk, Brady Skjei and Brendan Smith.
Yet, Coach David Quinn continued to put Staal in the position of defending against the opponents top lines. Staal led the team in defensive zone starts and was on the ice for the most defensive zone faceoffs of any Ranger.
Staal was fourth on the team in even strength ice time and he spent more time killing penalties than any other Ranger. Tough minutes indeed.
No one is looking for offense from Staal. His numbers this year, three goals and 10 assists, were similar to what he had done for the past seven seasons What was different was his plus/minus as he finished minus nine, the worst mark of his 12-year career and the first time he was on the negative side in five years.
Before the season the Rangers announced that they would be going with five assistant captains. Staal was the only one of the five who was assistant captain for both home and away games. You could see as the roster grew younger throughout the season, that Staal was taking on more and more of a leadership role whether it be in practice or in post-game interviews.
As a rookie coach, it was clear that David Quinn was drawing heavily on the experience of players like Zibanejad, Lundqvist and especially Staal. You could see why. Quinn was very much like Marc Staal when the coach was a defenseman for Boston University in the 1990’s.
Why the grade
If we were looking at Marc Staal’s year from an advanced statistics perspective he would probably deserve a D. However, when you look a little deeper into his minutes, you have to give him some credit for the workload and leadership, thus the C.
Ranger fans are especially frustrated with Staal considering his $5.7 million annual salary and the fact that he has two more years and a no movement clause. Remember, Glen Sather didn’t point a gun at Staal’s head and force him to sign that deal. Staal had just turned 28 when he signed the contract in January, 2015 and was coming off a season when he five goals, 20 points and was plus 18.
Next season will be interesting for Staal and the Rangers. First off, he isn’t going anywhere and a buyout would make no sense. The hope has to be that he won’t be forced to be the go-to defenseman any longer and he would benefit from sheltered minutes on the second or third defense pairing.
There’s no question that Quinn will rely on Staal to be a role model for Libor Hajek, Ryan Lindgren and Adam Fox. The question that is more important is whether his defense will be even more of a liability than it was this season. If it is, all the leadership in world won’t make up for it.
The numbers
Games: 79
Goals: 3
Assists: 10
Points: 13
CF%: 42.5%
Plus/Minus: -9
PIM: 32
ATOI: 19:25 (3rd among defensemen)
Hits: 178 (1st on team)
Blocked Shots: 118 (tied for 1st)
Defense Zone Starts: 219 (1st on team)
Defensive Zone Faceoffs: 447 (1st on team)
Shorthanded TOI: 2:53 per game (1st on team)
Must Read. Nothing to that Henrik Lundqvist story. light
Next Report Card: Ryan Strome