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Dallas Stars Daily Links: The Case Against Lindell’s Big Payday

Posted on by Tyler Mair

Yesterday, Cody did a great job of explaining why Esa Lindell deserved his massive pay raise. But not everyone agrees — former DBD bench boss Josh Lile, for instance, thinks we’re all putting in a little too much stock in Lindell’s defensive ability:

Being able to defend is great. Doing it all the time is a sign that things aren’t going well. Lindell defends a lot, and opposing teams fire a ton of pucks on net with him on the ice. Excess pucks on net eventually lead to goals against. Whether that’s his fault or a schemed idea doesn’t change the fact that pucks are fired at will on the Stars’ net with him on the ice.

Furthermore, many supporters of the contract extension point to how Lindell acts as a sort of defensive safety net for regular partner John Klingberg. But looking at the stats, that may not be the case:

I don’t know that we can reliably say that Lindell helped Klingberg’s performance. If anything, I think there is evidence that the opposite happened… In 2019, when not with Klingberg, Lindell performed at best like a middle-of-the-pack defensive defenseman at even strength.

You can get angry at me down in the comments after reading the rest of Lile’s piece here.

Around the League

In case you went to bed at 6 p.m. yesterday, the St. Louis Blues beat the San Jose Sharks last night, advancing to the Stanley Cup Final:

As we Dallas Stars fans wallow in misery, let’s just distract ourselves by looking ahead to the NHL Draft:

We can also peek forward toward free agency. Here’s a look at who’s hurt/helped their stock this postseason:

Okay, back to misery — something tells me there needs to be a redaction here:

At least someone can be happy about how things are unfolding:

Finally…

Easiest choice ever:

Talking Points