It’s the offseason here at Defending Big D, which means it’s the time for Player Grades!
We’ll be going through each player on the Dallas Stars roster and giving a general breakdown of how their season went in Victory Green. At the end, I’ll assign my personal grade for their 2022-23 performance, and y’all can can offer up your own grades and analysis in the comments below.
Before we get started, a couple of notes:
- We’ll only be looking at Stars currently on the roster who played at least 20 games (regular season + playoffs) for the team.
- Grades will be based on both a player’s regular season and postseason performances for Dallas specifically. Since the team had a deep playoff run, that will factor a bit more into the ratings, but we’ll try not to overreact to a single games/series.
- These grades are my sole opinion, and are not reflective of the Defending Big D staff as a whole. Except for the ones you disagree with – those aren’t mine.
Ryan Suter (No. 20)
Regular: 82 GP, 3 G, 22 A, 25 P, +0, 26 PIM, 20:23 ATOI All-Situations; 52.6 CF%, 51.3 FF%, 99.6 PDO Even-Strength
Playoffs: 19 GP, 0 G, 6 A, 6 P, -3, 18 PIM, , 23:21 ATOI All-Situations; 53.1 CF%, 52.6 FF%, 98.4 PDO Even-Strength
Contract Status: 2/4 years @3.65M AAV, NMC
You’ve probably noticed a pattern so far with our player grades, in that the first four were all pending UFAs. The reason for that is simple: NHL Free Agency is less than a month away, with the re-signing period even closer. That means it’s important we get out grades out for those players before then, both for armchair discussions and so it’s not a piece about a player no longer in the organization.
So then why am I lumping in Ryan Suter, who has two years left on his deal, with the UFAs? Because the re-signing period also happens to be the contract buyout period, and while Jim Nill says he has no plans to do so (why would he?), a possible Suter buyout has been a hot topic for Stars fans since… well, pretty much since the end of the 2021-22 season. So while such a potential buyout is not the subject of today’s piece, it does move Suter ahead a bit to the front of the line.
Now then, with all of that out of the way, this year Ryan Suter was… okay?
Wait, put down your pitchforks for a second and hear me out. Yes, Suter has been the subject of much criticism from Stars’ fans this season (myself included), and for good reason. But to immediately slap on a “failing” grade and just rake him over the coals would be an emotional response, not necessarily a logical one.
Instead, let’s break down the numbers. First of all, no skater sans Miro Heiskanen played more minutes than Ryan Suter. He was second in total average ice time, second in even-strength, second out of defensemen on the Power Play, and fourth out of defensemen on the Penalty Kill. These numbers, by the way, are not inflated due to playing with Heiskanen, which only occurred regularly towards the end of the season – most of his time was spend next to Nils Lundkvist, followed by Collin Miller:
In the playoffs, his average ice time jumped up by three minutes, while his even-strength time jumped up by four. That was a byproduct of playing alongside Miro Heiskanen, who played nearly 28 minutes per game and routinely broke 30, even in regulation. That Suter was given those extra minutes instead of them being shared throughout the lineup speaks to the trust the coaching staff held in him.
Now of course, just because you eat minutes doesn’t mean you necessarily do well in them. But in terms of possession stats, Suter’s numbers were quite good – he was 8th and 12th on the team (at least 20 GP) in CF% and FF% respectively for the regular season, and 8th and 6th on the team in the playoffs (excluding Frederick Olofsson’s two game stint).
To again reference the above graphs by Micah McCurdy (@IneffectiveMath), Suter was shelled on defense a lot early on, but was more or less average (the all-season low and the all-season high kind of cancel each other out) the rest of the season, accompanied by an increase in scoring. All in all, not bad for a 38 year old defenseman.
Okay, now that the numbers are out of the way, here comes the context: out of defensemen, his CF% and FF% were 3rd and 5th for the regular season, and 5th and 3rd for the postseason. And the margins are rather small – we’re talking (usually) 1-2 percentage points between the 1st and 5th defensemen, with Esa Lindell and Jani Hakanpää being the only ones below 50% (and by a healthy margin, too). In other words, outside of the two “defensive defensemen,” the entire blueline had very good possession stats, not just Suter.
Then there’s the scoring, in which Suter has struggled for the past three seasons (the first of which led to his buyout by the Minnesota Wild). Not everyone can be Joe Pavelski and defy father time, but he posted just 3 goals and 22 assists across 82 games, which was just one point more and five goals less than the aforementioned “defensive defenseman” Esa Lindell. And this was with ample power play time on the second unit, mind you.
“But Tyler, wasn’t he still second in defensemen in scoring?” That’s true! Except that would be ignoring the obvious truth that, outside of Miro Heiskanen, the Stars’ defense wasn’t exactly a strong suit. Good possession numbers overall, yes, but there was a distinct lack of scoring despite the boom from the forwards under Pete DeBoer. Lindell had a down year, Lunkdvist was eating nachos by the end of the season, Miller and Hakanpää traded scratches in the playoffs, etc. I mean, when you have a 21 year old with 34 NHL games played in Thomas Harley come onto the team at the end of the season and immediately become (arguably) the team’s second best defenseman, that kind of proves the bar wasn’t very high to begin with.
If we were to then sideline comparisons with the rest of the blueline, we could look at his isolated impact, which doesn’t paint that that pretty of a picture:
At first glance, it looks pretty decent – Suter himself is about middle of the pact, and doesn’t offer a lot of variance with several players. But then you see how he brings down the defense of gifted scorers like the team’s top line or Wyatt Johnston, as well as some defensive forwards like Joel Kiviranta or Radek Faksa. How Lukdvist, his partner for much of the season, had a much stronger offensive impact without him. Same with Tyler Seguin and the top line.
And then there were those moments. Stars fans know what I’m talking about – times like in Game 2 against the Vegas Golden Knights where Suter cost Dallas the win, or in Game 6 of that series when he exhibited little effort in chasing the puck to the endboards and then took a terrible penalty. Terrible penalties, by the way, were kind of his staple in the postseason, along with his terrible play in the Seattle Kraken series in which both he and Heiskanen got absolutely shelled.
At the end of the day, I think it’s those types of performances that leave such a bitter taste in Stars’ fans mouths. Because when Suter was signed in free agency, he was meant to be a strong, veteran defenseman who solidified the team’s top 4. Instead, he’s been the best of a weak supporting cast at best, and the weakest link in the chain at worst. His ample ice time is a combination of a lack of better options (his power play time with Harley in the lineup notwithstanding) and the fact that he’s a veteran defenseman with a strong NHL career, the type of player coaches love to trust in big situations even when their performance doesn’t warrant it.
Which brings me back to where I started things off: I think by the numbers, Suter was okay. And it’s a performance that is pretty decent for a 38 year old defenseman. But that’s not the type of player he was expected to be, nor the type of player the Stars’ front office and coaching staff treats him as. He was a liability at many times, making the exact kind of mistakes veterans are supposed to avoid and would get a younger player healthy scratched. I think that’s what ends up bringing his overall grade down below the “average” level.
Final Grade: D+
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