I think that the decision by the Calgary Flames to bring back Alex Tanguay for a second tour of duty was a good one.

It isn’t a decision with no possibility of backfiring, of course.  Flames Nation’s excellent Kent Wilson went into some detail on Tanguay’s adventures since leaving Calgary, and I find myself largely in agreement with his synopsis of the signing:

I still consider Tanguay a worthwhile gamble at the price the team paid – but that’s what he is: a gamble. His last truly notable offensive season was 4 years ago and the last time he held his own against heavy hitters at ES was three years ago. Tanguay isn’t old by any means, but he has crested the 30 year mark and has suffered some significant injuries along the way. If Tanguay can even somewhat recapture the player he was once was, Sutter has hit a homerun with this addition and the Flames have another heavy hitter in the top 6. If not, then Tanguay will struggle to replicate the contributions of Nigel Dawes, at twice the price.

(And since I’m quoting, I should plug his article a little: Kent’s full take on Tanguay is lengthier, and he also goes into detail on the Flames’ other signings.)

Still, I wanted to provide some context for why I think Tanguay is a good bet for the Flames.  Every transaction made by an NHL team is a gamble in some respect: they’re gambling that Player X is going to contribute to winning at a rate that outpaces (or at the very least, stays par with) their salary.  Because NHL teams can’t look into the future, they have to estimate what each player’s production is going to be.

Because the NHL is a ‘what have you done for me lately’ league, that estimation is generally heavily weighted to what a player has done in the previous season.  How much emphasis each team puts on career record vs. recent performance varies from G.M. to G.M., and it’s often affected by inside information, injury record and age, and personal familiarity with the player in question.

Alex Tanguay is a player who looks less than stellar under the ‘what have you done for me lately’ glare.  He was a bit player on one of the worst teams in hockey, putting up lousy totals while playing in the NHL’s worst division.  The reason I think he might be a “worthwhile gamble” has to do with how out of character this past season was for him, offensively.

First, here are his even-strength numbers from 2006-07 on, courtesy of behindthenet.ca and nhl.com.  The four columns are goals, assists and points per 60 minutes of ice-time as well as average even-strength ice-time per game.

Assuming that we view Tanguay’s assist production in 2006-07 as an aberration unlikely to be repeated (and I do) we see his assist production was right in range with his previous two seasons.  His time on ice per game at even-strength was also above average, so this wasn’t a case of his coach not allowing him enough rope.  The chief difference at even-strength was Tanguay’s goal production, which dropped more than half from his career average.  More on that after we consider his power-play numbers.

Again, we see a roughly 60% drop in goal production here.  We also notice a very similar drop in assist production and as a result of that also in point production.  Time on ice may give us a clue as to what was happening here; while Tanguay had been a first unit option the previous three seasons (despite average-ish production on the man advantage) that ended in Tampa Bay, where they had better options.

The key question remaining is why did Tanguay’s production fall off the cliff?

Tanguay did suffer a serious shoulder injury in Montreal that shelved him for much of the stretch drive, but that seems unlikely to be the culprit: he had six goals in 16 games following the injury, a 31-goal pace.  The drop in power play time was likely a partial contributor, but that doesn’t explain the reason for his goal-scoring decline.

Honestly, I don’t know the reason.  I do know it was driven heavily by shooting percentage: Tanguay dropped down to 11.0% last season, a 48% decline from the year before and down 41.5% from his career rate of 18.8%.  In six of his 10 NHL seasons, Tanguay’s topped the 20.0% mark, so while 11.0% represents a decent conversion rate for most players, it was easily the worst mark of Tanguay’s career.

I also know that shooting percentage fluctuates from year to year, but that most players return to their career mark.  I suspect Tanguay will do something similar, and I suspect we’ll see him return to the first power play unit in Calgary, and that as a result of those two factors we’ll see him post numbers more in keeping with his career totals.