What Do Stats Say About Patrick Maroon?

Peter Chiarelli made big news today, announcing that the Oilers had traded Martin Gernat and a 4th round pick to Anaheim for Patrick Maroon.

I took a look at some of Maroon's stats, to get an idea of what the Oilers are getting.

Tale of the tape:

Height: 6'3''
Weight: 230lbs
Career Hits/Games Played: 384/204

Source: www.hockey-reference.com

Takeaway: Maroon is a big, physical player. Apparently his nickname is "Big Rig".  I think that's an awesome nickname, and his physical style will definitely win him some fans in Edmonton, but it doesn't really tell us much about his effectiveness as a player.

Relative Stats:

Source: www.corsica.hockey

Takeaway: Maroon has struggled to do his part in driving play for the Ducks this season. But when looking at the larger sample size, we see a player who held his own, and was certainly worthy of a middle six role on a playoff caliber team. I knew that Maroon had spent time playing with the Perry Getzlaf line in the past, and I wanted to see if he was the benefactor of playing with vastly superior linemates. This leads me to my next section.

RelTM stats:

Source: stats.hockeyanalysis.com

Again, we see a player who has been struggling this season, but who also has pretty decent on-ice stats in a larger samples size. Since the start of the 2013-14 season Maroon's CF60 RelTM and GF60 RelTM are both positive, which means that he has, in general, been a positive factor in driving the Ducks' offence. His CA60 RelTM is negative in the larger sample, which is also a good sign. But his GA60 RelTM is a significant positive regardless of which sample we look at. That's not good. Maroon has had a relatively low on-ice save% for most of his career, that would be a bigger red flag if he was defenceman. As it is, I'm not particularly worried. His xGA is a little worse than his Corsi against, but beyond that it's quite possible that his on-ice save % woes are unlucky noise. If you exclude this season, his GF% RelTM from the previous two seasons was positive. So I'd say that he's still capable of playing a middle six role on most teams.

Usage Adjusted Corsi Based Stats:

Source: data from stats.hockeyanalysis.com; UA Corsi formula was tweeted by Domenic Galamini on Twitter (@MimicoHero). I believe it was once featured on ownthepuck.blogspot.ca. CFAA, CABA, CDAA, etc. are different ways of expressing UA Corsi impacts, which I created, but based 100% on Galamini's formula. Basically, this is a way of estimating how a player would perform on an average team, with average linemates, against average competition. I like to use it to compare players on teams with dramatically different possession results. Intuitively, I believe that it's harder to outperform high quality teammates, therefore possession drivers on teams like LA, or Anaheim this year, are slightly undersold by simply using RelTM stats. Theoretically, this method would account for that.

Takeaway: Regardless of who he's being compared to, Maroon has been having a rough go of it this season. But looking at the past three seasons together, we again see a player who can help his team create offence and suppress shots against.

Production:

Source: stats.hockeyanalysis.com

Takeaway: Once again we see a very productive player, when looking at the last three season in their totality. But this season has really been brutal! Maroon is last among regular Ducks forwards in points/60 even though he's had the good fortune of being credited with a lot of secondary assists. The crazy thing is that over a quarter of his ice time in the '13-16 sample comes from this year, yet he's still averaging nearly a full point per hour more over that sample.

Conclusion:

There have been two Patrick Maroons. If the Oilers are getting the 2013-2015 version, they're getting a heck of a player. That player combined top six skill with bottom six physicality and managed to drive meaningful possession for an elite team. Having that player for two more years at a $2 million cap hit would be a steal (for the Oilers it's just $1.5M with the Ducks picking up 25% of the contract). However, in 2015-16 Patrick Maroon has been no more productive than a fourth liner. Having that player for two more years would be somewhat of a burden, although not a terribly expensive one.

Maroon is only 27, and I'm inclined to believe that his best days aren't entirely behind him. Maybe he's been struggling with nagging injuries, which are hindering his production this year. Whatever the cause may be, I'm of the opinion that the potential benefits outweigh the costs, when it comes to Maroon. It's certainly possible that he won't pan out as an Oiler. But I'm comfortable with stating, on record, that I believe Chiarelli made a smart gamble in acquiring this player.