The Sabres and Kings have created a new market for defensive defensemen in Mattias Samuelsson and Mikey Anderson

Credit: © Brace Hemmelgarn

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Unless you’re a fan of the team or a hockey nerd, when you got a notification on your phone or saw the news that Mattias Samuelsson of the Buffalo Sabres and Mikey Anderson of the Los Angeles Kings were signed to respective seven and eight-year extensions, you probably were wondering why they got that kind of term. You were may have even wondering who they were.

But, those two players are the start of a new market for defensemen, particularly the archetype of the defensive defenseman. They don’t have the slick skating and hands of a Cale Makar or a Roman Josi, but they bring a completely different combination of skills to the table that allows them to be good at what they do, and it’s why they are worth the kind of term they’ve started to receive.

Last week, I took a look at why some veteran defensemen are starting to end up on bad contracts when they reach their UFA years, largely because of how the league has changed, and a lot of the people in the sport still haven’t caught up. This week, I’m going to be a lot nicer and look at why these two particular defensemen are great examples of what “catching up” looks like.

The New Defensive Defenseman

What the defensive defenseman is now is not necessarily a brand new concept, but it has evolved significantly.

When a lot of people think of a defensive defenseman, they picture the good old days of Scott Stevens and Chris Pronger. Those specific players could put up points, so they weren’t true defensive defensemen, but they best represented the ideology of it. In the 2000s, they’d be that big physical presence on the blueline that would make a forward’s life difficult in front of the crease and along the boards, lay out a big hit if they caught someone with their head down, and allow their more offensive partner to focus on scoring.

That balance continued into the 2010s, but the game became a lot faster and a lot smarter, so the defensive defenseman adapted to that stay-at-home presence that you paired with your offensive defenseman so that they could jump up into the rush. The puck-mover had that rock behind him that would provide some coverage in case things went wrong. Sometimes they still had that physical touch, like Johnny Boychuk, and sometimes they were an under-the-radar defenseman playing above their weight who could still hold their own with a play-driving partner, like Michal Kempny.

However, the 2010s were also the start of what has since become the norm in the 2020s, because just being able to stay at home wasn’t enough to really thrive in that role. It often meant that one defender was relied on a bit more to move the puck, which allowed players to focus more on one defender to keep the puck from going up the ice. So in order to really gel and succeed as a pair in the modern era, a team needs both defenders on a pair to move the puck well, and give the team multiple threats on the back end for outlet passes and zone exits to create pressure on the other team.

Whether it was Jake Muzzin anchoring Drew Doughty on the top pair, Niklas Hjalmarsson eating up all the tough minutes so that Duncan Keith and Brent Seabrook could dominate easier minutes, or Jared Spurgeon and Mattias Ekholm providing support in less of a spotlight for their pairings in the early stages of their career, we’ve seen defensive defensemen grow into these all-around defenders over the past 10 years, and now it’s a staple in most lineups.

But like the defensemen in my previous article, the market hadn’t quite found a way to capitalize on the best years for these types of defenders, often not even recognizing their contributions until well after the fact, and then paying them for it in their 30s when their best years are behind them and their bodies have slowed them down. Until now.

Enter Samuelsson and Anderson

The reason why I mentioned Samuelsson and Anderson off the top is because the Sabres and Kings jumped the gun on these two defenders and may reap the rewards of it in the long term.

All the defensemen I mentioned previously, and a majority of the others of this ilk, saw their teams take a while to jump on committing to these players, and ended up either bridging them and slowly adding more money, or not getting to that long-term extension until they were 26-27 and, as I mentioned in the previous article with the aging curve, not getting the full benefit of those years as they started to exit their primes.

The Sabres and Kings saw what they had in these two defenders, and they went for it. Samuelsson is signed to under $4.3 million per year for his age 23-30 seasons, and Anderson will make under $4.2 million for his age 24-32 seasons. For the entirety of their prime years, they’ll be well underpaid, and even if they fall off a bit in those final couple years, those cap hits won’t be huge burdens on the salary cap, especially as it starts to increase more and more every year.

With how hard it is to evaluate defensive defensemen, getting guys who are good at this aspect of the game locked up for cheap in their primes not only guarantees having them, but you also don’t run the risk of getting someone who appears to be good at it, but isn’t, and locking them up to significantly worse contracts in their older years.

Just look at the last 12 months for Ben Chiarot. He cost an arm and a leg at the 2022 Trade Deadline just to do nothing for the Florida Panthers, and maybe even hinder them, and then we saw him go to free agency and get paid $4.75 million for four years just to be a possession black hole for the team, even with Moritz Seider on the other side of that pairing.

Now, there is still a risk involved. For Samuelsson, the Sabres locked him up to this deal after just 54 NHL games, and Anderson’s comes before he’s hit the 200 game mark. However, the added benefit of getting some RFA years into this long-term deal is that if it’s obvious very early into their deals that they aren’t what you thought they were, they can be bought out with significantly smaller damages than a UFA contract.

For Samuelsson, the Sabres have a window of the next three seasons where they can buy him out with a cap hit of under $800,000 remaining, and for Anderson, it’s the next two seasons where it’s $700,000 or less. Even if they want to do it after that, their buyout cap hits fall to around $1.4 million, which isn’t ideal but far from the worst case.

It’s what the Ottawa Senators did with Colin White when his deal didn’t pan out, and as a result, they only have $875,000 on the books for five of the next six seasons, with that other year seeing them get a cap bonus of $625,000 in 2024-25. It’s likely not on the minds of either the Sabres or Kings to go that route, especially for the Kings with Anderson being a bit more of a known commodity, but it is an added insurance policy in case things go south quick.

The bigger focus should be on the fact that they have these players locked up throughout their entire primes on deals that look to be well worth the cost, and they’ll probably be underpaid for a majority of the time. It’s a bet with some risk, but it’s a smarter bet than what a lot of other teams have been doing, and if they pay attention, they could capitalize on it next.

So who’s next?

The market is a tricky one, because you can’t just give this kind of contract to any young up-and-coming defensive defenseman. You have to pay attention to what the market is looking like for them, you have to pay attention to the kind of role they are in, and you have to make sure that they aren’t heavily sheltered in that role and are thriving it.

When I took a look at similarity scores from Evolving Hockey for Mikey Anderson’s 2019-22 seasons (Samuelsson didn’t have enough games to meet this criteria), his closest comparable that also played during those seasons was Andrew Peeke, a defenseman who’s played a similar role with the Columbus Blue Jackets. Unfortunately, the Blue Jackets did not make that bet, and instead opted to bridge him until he was 27 at a $2.75 million cap hit, so there goes that example.

As far as smart bets go in this season’s RFA defenseman class, Evan Bouchard and K’Andre Miller jump out as obvious candidates, but they are a bit too offensive to really fall into this category, plus their seasons aren’t exactly under the radar, so if they get signed long term, it’ll likely be for big money. Bowen Byram is another strong candidate, and Colorado is the type of team to make that kind of bet, but he’s also built up enough of a profile to not exactly be “underrated” and could get a big pay day.

One defenseman that could potentially fit this very specific mold we’re looking for is Cam York of the Philadelphia Flyers. He’s just 22 years old, has put up some of the best results on the team with the third best defensive goals above replacement and fourth best expected goals against per 60 in just 39 games, and he’s played top-four minutes against relatively tough competition to show that it’s not just him cruising in sheltered minutes.

He’s been one of the few bright spots on the Flyers’ blue line, and unlike the other solid options for them in Justin Braun and Nick Seeler, York’s best years are still ahead of him and could be worth investing in. And with a recent management change, maybe they’ll make smarter moves than they have in the past. Then again, giving him a one-year bridge deal wouldn’t be the worst idea either with his limited NHL experience thus far (which is what the Kings did with Anderson after his entry-level contract), even if York did do well in that limited time. But that also didn’t stop the Sabres from committing to Samuelsson so quickly.

The lack of true options for this type of player in this type of window should go to show just how important it is to recognize when you have this type of player, and recognize it early enough to jump at the opportunity to commit to them for cheap and be the beneficiary down the road. The Sabres and Kings did just that with Samuelsson and Anderson, so it’ll be interesting to see if this is something that continues down the road, and who will be the next players to join them.

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The Sabres and Kings have created a new market for defensive defensemen in Mattias Samuelsson and Mikey Anderson

The New Defensive Defenseman

Enter Samuelsson and Anderson

So who’s next?

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