Hockey: In Defence of PA Parenteau

Originally posted on my Tumblr in response to a post arguing that Parenteau was terrible and not worth his contract.

"uhhhhhhh for the amount he does and the salary he has he is not worth it. You do realize that if a player is being overpaid that isn’t a good thing…right?"

That’s just blatantly untrue. First of all, Parenteau is only making 4M. That’s not bad at all for a reasonably good scoring forward which, before MT’s system and deployment (and a hefty serving of injuries and terrible luck) smothered him, PA was (and will likely be again). We got him for Danny Briere who is older, has the same cap hit, and is much worse (MB even got a PICK thrown in with him).

Comparables at 4M other than Briere include Hudler of Calgary (31 goals, 76 points in 78 games who had an incredible year), Pouliot of Edmonton (19 goals, 34 points in 58 games), Bickell of Chicago (14 goals, 28 points in 80 games), Jokinen of Florida (8 goals, 44 points in 81 games), Michalek of Ottawa (13 goals, 34 points in 66 games) and Jones of Calgary (14 goals, 30 points in 67 games).

In an 82 game season, Briere played 57 games and had 11 points. His numbers are everywhere worse than Parenteau’s. Parenteau played 56 games and had 22 points (8 goals), averaging about 12:39 of ice time per game, and had a goal and an assist in seven games in a very low scoring playoffs. (Incidentally, in previous years, Parenteau scored between 14 and 18 goals a season and put up between 33 and 67 points, placing him easily on par with the other 4M dollar players.) Parenteau was also rather impressive in the shootout, leading the team with four goals out of seven tries. Briere had one goal in two shootout attempts.

Yes, such an output seems a little underwhelming, but here is a very good piece from earlier in the season explaining why Parenteau was doing fine. In summary, PA was producing (roughly) similar individual scoring chances to Desharnais and Eller, good for fifth on the team after Pacioretty, Gallagher, Galchenyuk and Plekanec (who all either do or eventually will make far more than him). That’s good for a guy who gets less ice time than even Lars Eller who is already criminally underused. He also had pretty terrible luck. His Corsi and Fenwick for are above 50% meaning the Habs are actively better with him on the ice, he’s creating more shots unblocked (or otherwise) for than he is against.

His HERO chart shows that he is, in most areas, decidedly a top six player when compared to other players in the league.

He across the board made his Avalanche teammates better (with ONE exception). And he’s better than all of the Habs bottom six including Eller. His points per sixty after the trade deadline was team leading, ahead of the likes of Plekanec, Pacioretty, Eller and Gallagher.

Here’s another piece that breaks down his highly efficient and effective play style using footage from the Lightning/Habs playoff series in case you wanted more recent proof of his utility and value.

He missed a lot of games due to injuries, and stupid and inexplicable decisions by Therrien. He also suffered from utterly strange deployment, being frequently lower in the lineup than the likes of DSP and Weise (which meant he sometimes played with Eller, which makes it really hard to score, see any Eller piece ever written by myself or people at EOTP).

Saying Parenteau is over-paid based purely on his offensive output when he was under-utilized and strangely deployed is lazy, and quite frankly, wrong. He doesn’t need to go, he needs to be properly used. As the original poster said, the Habs were quantifiably better with him on the ice, and he should never have been a healthy scratch.

The Habs should definitely keep him.