Faceoff Factor

Did the Leafs sign the wrong player?

Ashley Gallant | National Hockey League

Jul 17, 09:24 AM | Hype this story!

Ever since the Jeff Finger signing became public, I think me and most of the hockey world had the same reaction: What?? How can the Leafs sign a 28-year-old rookie defenceman to a 4 year, $14M contract when he was a healthy scratch for half of Colorado’s playoff games last year?

Then, my friend Sarah sent me a couple of links that say that the Leafs may have signed the wrong player. Maybe they meant to sign Kurt Sauer instead of Jeff Finger.

Just when I thought things couldn’t get any worse for Toronto…

Daniel Tolensky of hockeybuzz.com was confused about the signing when he heard Cliff Fletcher and Ron Wilson’s rationale:

“A lot of people in Toronto are asking me, ‘Who the hell is Jeff Finger?’ simply because they haven’t seen him play. But, [former Colorado coach] Joel Quennville told me he was one of the five best defensemen in the Western Conference last year. He played against the best players on every other team. [Leafs’ coach] Ron Wilson told me he was always on the ice in San Jose games against Joe Thornton. Same thing with Jarome Iginla in Calgary, or the Sedin twins [Henrik and Daniel] in Vancouver. Quennville said [Finger] was his best defenseman in the last half of the year.” – Cliff Fletcher

“I’m not BS-ing. He was the most improved defencemen at the end of the year in the Western Conference. He averaged almost 20 minutes [for the season], and in the first 30 games he didn’t play more than 10 in a game.” – Ron Wilson

Tolensky did a little investigating to see whether there was any truth to these quotes. First, he disproved Wilson’s idea that Finger didn’t play more than 10 minutes a game in the first 30 games of the season. In fact, he averaged 18.37 minutes a game during this time, and was under 14 minutes only twice (12:23 and 11:19).

I would say that was missing the mark by a lot, Ron Wilson. I wonder what you would’ve said if you were ‘BS-ing’.

Next, Tolensky compared Finger and Sauer’s 5-on-5 ice time against Thornton, Iginla, Daniel Sedin, and Gaborik. In each case, Kurt Sauer clearly had more ice time in a shut down role:

JOE THORNTON
Jeff Finger: 2.95 min/game (18.40% of JT’s ice time)
Kurt Sauer: 7.47 min/game (49.70%)

JAROME IGINLA
Jeff Finger: 3.67 min/game (23.50% of JI’s ice time)
Kurt Sauer: 9.53 min/game (60.20%)

DANIEL SEDIN
Jeff Finger: 3.2 min/game (24.60% of DS’s ice time)
Kurt Sauer: 7.91 min/game (57.10%)

MARIAN GABORIK
Jeff Finger: 3.37 min/game (18.90% of MG’s ice time)
Kurt Sauer: 11.5 min/game (69%)

There were 17 games in which both Finger and Sauer played against the above 4 players. In those games, Finger was put out against the star players 22.4% of the time, while Sauer played against them 62.3% of the time.

According to Gabriel Desjardins of behindthenet.ca, Sauer’s Quality of Competition was comparable to Kuba, Hamhuis, Bouwmeester, Phillips and Ranger.

Finger? He’s more like Erskine, Janik, Sekera, Michalek, Schubert, Kukkonen and Carle.

Ray Slover of Sporting News also wrote about the topic, and noted that Finger was surprised about Toronto’s offer, saying it was twice the amount he expected. In fact, Kurt Sauer’s contract with Phoenix was more what Finger was looking for: 4 years, $7M.

Given all of this information, is it possible that Toronto signed the wrong player? It certainly looks that way, since it seems as though they were expecting a shutdown defenceman to play against the NHL’s star players. Sauer played that role last year with Colorado, while Finger was a second- or third-pairing defenceman and a powerplay specialist.

In the worst case scenario, Jeff Finger does not live up to the expectations of his contract and he becomes yet another whipping boy in Toronto. The best case scenario is that he turns out to be everything Fletcher and Wilson said he was, and everything no one else can see just yet.

Either way, they still could’ve signed Jeff Finger to a smaller contract and saved themselves a little room under the cap.