Re-sign Ryan Smyth? That's a no-brainer.

Ryan asked who was to blame for this season and looked upstairs.  Jonathan Willis thinks bringing Ryan Smyth back on a one-year deal is a good idea, but is catching flak all over Twitter for that opinion.  Willis is a smart guy, "all over Twitter" usually isn't, so he's likely correct...so off to the charts!

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This is a chart I've used before.

The horizontal axis shows qualcompTOI.  The vertical axis shows percentage of percentage of faceoffs taken in the offensive zone.  The bubbles are color-coded: blue means the player in the bubble has a positive zonestart-adjusted Corsi, clear means a negative. Finally, the size of the bubble indicates absolute value zonestart-adjusted Corsi.

First thing is first - I had to remove Roman Horak from the chart because his -75/60 Corsi ruined the bubble sizing.

What this shows is that Boyd Gordon and Ryan Smyth are doing their jobs against 3rd line comp and terrible zonestarts.  It reinforces what the writing crew here at C&B has been saying for two years: Smyth is just fine at his natural position with competent linemates.  Playing him at the pivot with awful face-punchers and AHL players isn't going to work.

Re-sign him to a 1-year deal and feel confident the guy will beat bottom six minutes - he's one of the few Oilers doing his job this season.