There are moments when one player truly makes a difference in a game. Monday night was one of those, as Kiefer Sherwood's hat trick propelled the Vancouver Canucks to a 3-1 victory over the Colorado Avalanche. If you just said to yourself, hey good for him, I liked him, I wonder how his season has been, we're going to discuss it.
Sherwood so far is on pace for a career year. Last year's numbers with the Nashville Predators had his stat line at 27 points (10 goals, 17 assists) over 68 games with 41 PIMs and 234 hits over an average ice time of 12:10 per game.
Not bad for guy who started on the fourth line and moved around a bit, finally settling into a role as the battering ram for Tommy Novak and Luke Evangelista.
Sherwood is yet another former Preds player who is thriving with their new team
This year, Sherwood has played 30 games so far, scoring 17 points (11 goals, 6 assists) with 184 hits 12 PIMs and is averaging 14:24 minutes of ice time per game. He's on pace to break his previous career highs and might eclipse some of those numbers by a wide margin.
It's pretty good production for a player making $1.5 million this year and next. Sherwood has spent some time popping around the lineup for the Canucks, but most commonly plays with Danton Heinen and Pius Suter. The trio has meshed well and Sherwood has thrived under the system employed by Head Coach Rick Tocchet, a player who played a similar style to Sherwood in a different era. Tocchet had more of a goal scoring touch, and a penchant for fighting, but both are around the same size and rely on speed and physicality night in and night out.
Sherwood is thriving with his new time while the Predators have languished around last place in the league. Would he propel this team to new heights? Probably not on his own, but his success elsewhere and the Predators struggles are emblematic of issues created by upper management and the perils of trying to reward loyal players.
Looking back, Trotz should've kept Sherwood and moved on from others
Last season General Manager Barry Trotz made several in-season extensions to players in various places on the roster, but three particularly in the bottom-six. He threw two year contracts out to Cole Smith in January, Michael McCarron in February, and Mark Jankowski in March. He also took care of Tommy Novak and Dante Fabbro in season as well. The writing was on the wall that Sherwood would not be back and the extension for Juuse Saros plus the big free agency splash were icing on the cake.
Now it's hard to complain about paying Mark Jankowski $800k a year, but there was a reason he was an AHLer. Cole Smith is a lunch pail guy, works hard every time he's out there, and brings a consistent presence, but was he the better buy than Sherwood? You can argue that McCarron with his faceoff prowess and being the defacto heavyweight of the squad has a more clearly defined role and would be safe. The Fabbro contract just looks bad now.
These are small mistakes that start adding up and you notice when a team that was in the playoffs the season before and was already penciled into this season's dance off ends up in last place. In an effort to be proactive, a problem that didn't need to exist was created.
Now you have two players not producing for a little more than what you could've paid Sherwood, Fabbro on another team for no return, and you're hoping guys like Zachary L'Heureux pan out (he's playing well and nothing bad to say about him) and Ozzy Wiesblatt (currently doing meh in the AHL) to fill the role of your high energy, fast, physical player flexible enough to jump lines.
Just another reason to hate the season.