Ales Hemsky always seemed like a Montreal Canadien to me. It’s fitting that he finally ended up there and there’s a reasonable chance that he ends up being a very good value signing for them this year.
Different cities love different types of players. For about twenty years, I was an Oilers fan. Edmonton’s always loved the blue collar third/fourth liner. Ethan Moreau won the Oilers’ fan vote for MVP in 2003-04 in a year in which he scored 20 goals, added 12 assists, fought six times and was just generally a very useful bottom six forward. There’s nothing wrong with Moreau, who was a fine player at his peak but the MVP as selected by the fans? The coveted Zane Feldman Trophy? Ethan Moreau?
Advertisement
Toronto likes a little grease in a star. Doug Gilmour resonated there in a way that Mats Sundin, a superior player, never did. Philadelphia’s similar, although their ideal player is perhaps a little more violent with fewer teeth.
Montreal’s different. It’s always seemed to have a unique appreciation for a player with some style. Guy Lafleur. Patrick Roy. Alexei Kovalev. P.K. Subban. Great players who looked great while they played.
Ales Hemsky won’t be remembered as a great player (although he’s been very good at 5-on-5 for much of his career, as we’ll see) but he looks great doing what he does. Montrealers unfamiliar with Hemsky may find this video enlightening in that regard.
He’s always had a sense of the moment, which is part of being one of those players who look great, although there weren’t too many moments to sense after 2005-06 in Edmonton. The Oilers were life-and-death to make the playoffs in 2005-06 due to some spotty goaltending. He scored the goal with 35 seconds left in the 81st game that got them over the line. In the first round against Detroit, with Edmonton trailing 3-2 in the game and facing a game seven in Detroit against a much better team, he scored a pair of goals late to eliminate the Red Wings.
The next decade of Oilers hockey was somewhat big-moment free, but Hemsky departed in style. In his final game before the 2014 trade deadline, when everybody in Edmonton knew he was leaving, he scored a pair of goals against the Ottawa Senators, to whom he’d be traded the following day.
If Hemsky ends up being valuable for Montreal, it’s unlikely that it will be due to his operation of a power play unit. Playing at 5-on-4 was never a particular strength of his, which is very much contrary to the public perception of him as a player. He’s a fantastic example of something that’s really important to understand about power plays – a player who gets a lot of points on a power play that doesn’t score many goals isn’t necessarily good at the power play. In Hemsky’s case, the problem is pretty simple. When he’s been on the power play, he’s almost always been running it. He runs a plodding power play.
Advertisement
The best power plays generate great shots and plenty of them; power plays with Ales Hemsky on the ice generate great shots but with excruciating infrequency, something that hasn’t really changed as his career progressed. He’s an intriguing option as a bumper on PP1, but you wouldn’t want him running it. Being in the middle of the ice would force him to move the puck quickly as the penalty killers closed on him and he’s certainly deft enough with the puck to do it. It’s a spot that would take advantage of his skill, while using the other team to impose a constraint on his taste for delay.
If Hemsky’s going to pay off in a big way for the Canadiens, it will likely be at 5-on-5. Montreal was a pretty middling team in terms of scoring 5-on-5 goals last year, finishing 13th in the NHL with 2.3 GF/60. Hemsky played only 15 games last year, all for a Dallas Stars team that was out of contention, so it’s hard to take much from his season. During his three years in Dallas though, the Stars scored 2.6 GF/60 when he was on the ice, which is very good if you’re getting it from a third line player.
He did a lot of that with Radek Faksa and Antoine Roussell, which is kind of consistent with his career 5-on-5 production. When he’s produced, it hasn’t really been with highly skilled players. It’s been with players who go in straight lines up and down the ice. It seems plausible to me that you can only have so many guys who need the puck on their stick before you run into diminishing returns.
If you look back over Hemsky’s career at 5-on-5 in the NHL’s data era, it divides neatly into three categories. In his age 24-27 seasons, which covered 2007-11, Hemsky’s 5-on-5 production was outstanding by any standard. I could write a book about why the 2007-09 Oilers failed but it wasn’t because of Hemsky.
This was followed by the 2011-14 window, up until his departure from the Oilers, which was a disaster for him. He looked like the same player but nothing happened when he was on the ice. It was incredibly difficult to figure out and his age 28-30 window was not at all what you’d have expected, given his production from age 24-27.
Advertisement
His brief period as a Senator in 2014 hinted that there was a still a player there, as the puck started going in when he was on the ice again. He did enough that the Dallas Stars signed him to a three-year, $12 million contract in the summer of 2014.
While Hemsky missed most of the 2016-17 season after hip surgery, his production after leaving Edmonton looks very much like what you’d expect from a player aged 31-33 who had produced the way that he did from age 24-27. It’s not as good in terms of points – few players are – but it’s still impressive.
There’s just a weird, inexplicable three year crater in his production. His production in his age 31-33 window puts him amongst the 75th percentile or so for forwards playing at least 1,500 minutes between the ages of 31 and 33 since 2007-08. If he’s healthy – and historically, he tends to be reasonably healthy provided that he isn’t having major surgery – he still produces.
It’s easy to look at Hemsky’s point totals and kind of write him off as bottom-six filler at this point in his career. That misses that his point totals are low because he (quite sensibly) wasn’t on Dallas’ PP1 and spent most of his time outside of their top six forwards. All he did was drive a line at 5-on-5 that produced a reasonably high amount of offence in the time that he played. Montreal could use a player like that in their bottom six and if he’s able to give them more than that, so much the better.
What does this mean for Montreal? I’m skeptical that Hemsky and Jonathan Drouin will work particularly well, something that Claude Julien is experimenting with in the early days of training camp. Moreover, it doesn’t seem like a particularly good use of Hemsky’s talents. Put him with two guys who can skate hard to the net but aren’t the most creative players in the world and see if he’s got one more year left. If he does, I expect Montreal will take to him, the way it has with past players who could put on a show.
(Photo credit: Eric Bolte-USA TODAY Sports)