Hockey Rants

Sunday, July 30, 2006

Yannick Tremblay is not our Saviour!

The latest Canucks signing saw Dave Nonis ink offensive-minded defenseman Yannick Tremblay to a $450,000/1-year deal.

Yannick Tremblay?!

Cue the mainstream mediots with the usual headlines:

"Canucks sign Tremblay to boost blue-line" - TSN
'Nucks bolster blue line with Tremblay - SPORTSNET

Boost? Bolster?

Boost: To assist in further development or progress
Bolster: To buoy up or hearten

Does Yannick Tremblay really do anything of the sort for the Canucks blue line? The media use those terms all the time, but without realizing that signing a scrub like Tremblay does not actually IMRPOVE the Canucks. How does he progress the defense? Making them progressively worse than last year's group?

Tremblay has some offensive skills, I'll give him that, but the d00d is truly a negative-impact player, or below replacement level, if you will. Having Tremblay on the ice means that your team is worse off than having an easily replaceable guy like Nolan Baumgartner on the ice. Good teams do not have Yannick Tremblay's on their roster.

Opposing forwards love Yannick Tremblay because he makes Andy Delmore look like Scott Frickin' Stevens, k? There is a reason Yannick was in Germany last year and it wasn't just because of his Weisswurst fetish.

Let's see the damage Tremblay has done to his NHL teams during his career...


Career Statistics
YEAR      TEAM GP G  A  PTS +/- PIM
1996-1997 TOR   5 0  0   0   -4   0
1997-1998 TOR  38 2  4   6   -6   6
1998-1999 TOR  35 2  7   9   0   16
1999-2000 ATL  75 10 21 31  -42  22
2000-2001 ATL  46 4  8  12  -6   30
2001-2002 ATL  66 9  15 24  -15  47
2002-2003 ATL  75 8  22 30  -27  32
2003-2004 ATL  38 2  8  10  -13  13
Career --     378 37 85 122 -113 166

Yes, folks, that is a career -113 in just 378 games. Sure, he played in Atlanta, but HE WAS A BIG PART OF THE PROBLEM, not just a symptom of it.

If Tremblay ends up less than 90% of the season with the Manitoba Moose, than this is a bad deal for the Canucks. He doesn't provide nearly enough offence to make up for being a human turnstile.

Blech... get me some Maalox.

# posted by Unknown @ 11:27 am