Washington Capitals Shouldn’t Sign Matt Beleskey
Mandatory Credit: Kelvin Kuo-USA TODAY Sports
The Washington Capitals are pursuing a top six forward this off-season. This year’s crop of unrestricted free agents is not that attractive. One of the more intriguing pieces available in free agency is Anaheim Ducks forward Matt Beleskey. He’s only 26 years old and he’s coming off a career season. However, the Washington Capitals should probably stay far away from him.
Let me start off by saying that I have no issue with Beleskey as a player. I think he has potential and I think on the right team, he’s a solid top nine forward who with the right line mates could be an average or better top six forward. So why should the Washington Capitals stay away from him? His likely price tag.
"“He’s a guy to pursue in the off-season,” MacLean told Sportsnet 590 The Fan’s Dean Blundell & Co. “He’s had a great year, he’s a battler, he’s a physical presence.”The 26-year-old left winger and pending UFA’s 32 points this regular season (22 goals, 10 assists) has been followed by an explosive playoffs, no doubt adding to his value.MacLean says a do-it-all forward like Beleskey could warrant a deal in the range of $3 to 5 million. – Sportsnet"
Calling Beleskey a “do-it-all forward” isn’t too far from the truth. In 2014-2015, during the regular season, he averaged 1.5 minutes per game on the power play and 0.3 minutes per game on the penalty kill to go along with 12.4 minutes per game at even strength. He had an outstanding year as far as puck possession. His 54.0% even strength CorsiFor% and 4.3% Relative CorsiFor% tells me that the Ducks were a noticeably more dominant team with him on the ice than they were without him on the ice. However, before the 2013-2014 season (when he had a Relative CF% of 0.1%), he had never had a positive Relative CF%.
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Teams are going to likely look at Beleskey’s career season in 2014-2015 (22 goals and 32 points) and salivate thinking about his future. However, the Washington Capitals should be weary if his price tag exceeds a $3,5000,000 AAV for several reasons.
- It’s a career year. Stop me if you’ve heard this one: player A is an alright player. Player A has a career year during the last year of his tenure with a team. Team B signs Player A to a huge deal expecting Player A to keep playing like he did in the last year of his contract. Team B most likely wounds up disappointed and/or yelling at.
- Beleskey had a ton of luck the past two seasons. Beleskey has 112 points in 329 NHL games. Half of those points have come over his last two seasons (120 games). Not bad from someone who has averaged 13.5 minutes per game at even strength over the past two seasons. However, there’s this fun thing called “regression to the mean” and Beleksey is likely going to become acquainted with it. His shooting percentage is going to be the victim. Beleskey’s shooting percentage in 2014-2015 (15.2%) was almost double what it was in 2013-2014 (8%). The Washington Capitals should be alarmed by that because it is more likely than not unsustainable. Let’s suppose for a second that Beleskey shot 8% in 2014-2015. He had 145 shots on goal in 2014-2015. Multiply that by .08 and you get 11.6 goals. Even if you round that up to 12, that’s not worth more than $3,500,000 in free agency.
- Teams are most likely going to thrown money at him. As if having a career year in his last year of his contract wasn’t enough, Beleskey has gotten “over pay me in free agency” bingo by covering the “playoff performer” square with seven points in 14 playoff games this year (as of May 27, 2015). Paying a player a lot more money than you normally would because they played well for a stretch of 20 games or so usually doesn’t end well. That isn’t always the case though. The Washington Capitals did that with Joel Ward and it actually worked out pretty well for them. However, Ward is the exception, and not the rule.
I’ll admit, I’d love for the Washington Capitals to grab Beleskey if his price tag doesn’t exceed a $3,500,000 AAV. I think he’s at worst a pretty nice top nine forward who I think might be able to play really well with Evgeny Kuznetsov. However, free agent history suggests that some team is going to give Beleskey that close to $5,000,000 AAV deal that the Washington Capitals should under no circumstances offer to him. He’ll be paid like a top six forward when he’s never been one for an extended period of time. That’s a recipe for disaster.