The Athletic’s Jonathan Willis compiled a list of players upon whom NHL teams awarded large contracts based upon seasons in which the players posted career-best numbers in terms of shooting percentage, and “lost” as a result. One of the 20 contracts on Willis’ list was awarded by one Ken Holland:
4. Justin Abdelkader, Red Wings
How it happened: Abdelkader was an excellent role player for the Red Wings for many years. Drafted in 2005, he broke into the league in a depth role at 22 and spent the next few seasons hanging around as an all-positions forward with some skill but mostly a lot of hustle and defensive value.
Then, at 27, he caught his big break. His ice time spiked, and so did his shooting percentage. A guy with a career finishing rate of 6.5 percent at five-on-five nearly doubled that, hitting 12 percent. He also got some power play opportunities as a result, and ended the season with a career-high 23 goals and 14.9 shooting percentage.
The contract: The Red Wings had another year before Abdelkader’s contract expired, which is one of the reasons this deal ranks as highly as it does. By November of the following season, player and team had agreed on a seven-year pact worth $4.91 million annually in 2022 dollars.
How it ended: Abdelkader took 384 five-on-five shots in his post-breakout career, scoring 24 times for a shooting percentage of 6.3 percent — basically identical to his pre-breakout average.
More power play work helped soften the blow, but not enough. Abdelkader reverted back to being the player he always was until age took even that away and Detroit bought out the last three seasons of his extension.
Continued (paywall); I think that there were a lot of things that went wrong over the course of Abdelkader’s contract extension, with the main one being the retirement of Pavel Datsyuk, and secondary issues including some injuries to Abdelkader and different usage under coach Jeff Blashill as compared with coach Babcock…
So the argument that it was solely shooting percentage that turned the piano-puller back into a grinder doesn’t tell the whole story for me. There’s no doubt that Abdelkader stopped scoring goals, but the “Why’s” and “How’s” thereof were a little more complicated than, “A grinder grinds.”
