Checking In On Jason Blake
March 4th, 2008 by Tom
With the Islanders’ continued inability to score, we got curious about how former OrangeAndBlue sniper Jason Blake is faring with his new team – the Toronto Maple Leafs. We certainly knew that Blakey wasn’t exactly lighting it up this year but it had been a while since we saw his stats. Here they are:
Jason Blake 2007-08
GP G A P +/-
67 12 28 40 1
At first glance, you might interpret this as “good thing the Islanders didn’t sign that guy.” And you can’t argue with that sentiment. Blake got $20 million from Toronto after coming off a career year in which he posted 40 goals and 29 assists in 82 games. He was durable and he consistently lit the lamp. This season playing in a new system with a new club that has been plagued by inconsistency, Blake has been a shadow of his former self. He still gets the shots off, leading the Leafs with 277 so far this season, but they cross the goal-line just 4.3% of the time. He’s actually averaging more shots this season (4.1 a game) than he did last year (3.7). The difference is last season with the Islanders, Blake scored on 13.1% of his shots, more than three-times better than his average this season.
The question is – would the Isles have been better off this season if Blake had stayed? Long-term, I think the answer is obvious, they had to let him go. Blake just got too expensive and, at 34, is past the prime age for big-time scorers. But would the Islanders been better off with Blake for this one season? Probably, but I don’t think anyone could have expected him to duplicate last season’s numbers. For the three years prior to last season, Blake averaged 25 goals and 28 assists per campaign.
On this season’s club, Blake was basically replaced at left wing by Ruslan Fedotenko. Fedotenko has scored 15 goals and 16 assists this season. The other two big offensive additions are Mike Comrie (20G 27A) and Bill Guerin (20G 17A). To afford Blake, the Islanders wouldn’t have been able to acquire all three of these guys. Substitute Blake for any one of the three, and give him his average numbers over the three years prior to his break-out season, and the numbers are pretty even.
What is harder to gauge is what intangibles Blake would have brought to the club. He hustles. He goes all out. He creates chances out of thin air. He causes penalties. He can hog the puck. He can get trigger happy. He’s not a very good two-way player.
So, after thinking about it, I guess my answer is it is really difficult to tell whether the Isles would have been better this season with Blake suiting up but I don’t think he would have made much of a difference either way. I know it’s all guess work but I just don’t see how Blake could have had a big impact on this moribund offense. The problems go deeper than missing one good sniper.
