Leading up to this point in our free-agent series, we’ve mostly analyzed potential free-agent additions who would likely make a positive impact on the Buffalo Sabres roster. For every player with solid metrics and underwhelming base statistics, there is another with better base numbers than overall impact. One pending UFA who is best described by the latter, is current Colorado Avalanche forward, Vladislav Namestnikov.

As one of the more recognizable point-producers on our list so far, the 27-year-old might sound like a favorable asset to contribute in the Sabres’ top-six. For the better part of his career, he’s produced at a little less than a half-point per-game clip, spending parts of six seasons with four different teams. Analytically, his impacts are about as consistent as the sweaters he’s worn. Let’s dive into why that might be the case.

After starting his career producing positive impacts with the Tampa Bay Lightning, he’s struggled to varying extents in the three years since. It is worth mentioning that since 2017, he’s dressed with three different teams in the New York Rangers, Ottawa Senators, and of course, the Avalanche.

Prior to 2019-20, Namestnikov had historically good defensive, and shot-suppression metrics (varying in magnitude year-over-year). While certainly he wasn’t asked to be a shutdown presence for either the Rangers or Lightning, he still experienced a low rate of opportunities-against, even for a player with roughly a 58-percent career OSZ rate.

Offensively, his individual xGF rate is more inconsistent, but he definitely put forth his best performances with Tampa Bay. Naturally, when a positive impact player leaves a very good team and then fails to replicate said contributions elsewhere, we look at differences in both deployment, and quality of linemate.

This is where the analysis becomes less straight-forward. As a member of the Senators, one of the worst teams in the NHL this season, his usage was rather bizarre. In 2018-19 with the Rangers, Namestnikov skated for an average of 12:11 per-game at even-strength. With Ottawa, a much less talented team up front, that number dipped by more than a minute. In fact, he ranked 10^th among Senators forwards in that area.

He also ranked third to only Scott Sabourin and Nick Paul with the lowest relative xG rate among Senators forwards at -4.68-percent on the year. That dip can certainly be contextualized to an extent (which we’ll dive into momentarily), but for a player who was supposed to help in that regard, he was quite disappointing in what was by far the worst underlying performance of his career.

During his three-year stint in New York, he skated most frequently with players like Jimmy Vesey, Ryan Strome, and Mika Zibanejad. With the Senators, he primarily flanked Chris Tierney and Artem Anisimov. Most of those players are relatively solid in their own right, but they pale in comparison to Nikita Kucherov, Steven Stamkos, and Alex Killorn, Namestnikov’s most frequent linemates from 2014-17.

Obviously, when a player is separated from two of the most prolific offensive talents in the NHL (not to mention a very dynamic defensive forward in Killorn), the impacts will take some sort of hit. It’s also important to note that once he left Tampa Bay, Namestnikov transitioned to the wing after playing a great deal of center for the first five years of his NHL career.

Surprisingly, despite playing with a myriad of different linemates during his four-team tour, his zone deployment is the one thing that has remained relatively consistent. That being said, his highest rates came with the Lightning.

Only once in his career has his OZS rate not been offensively tilted. During the 2018-19 campaign, Namestnikov saw his OZS rate drop to 46.18-percent. The reason that’s interesting is because his xGA/60 rate actually improved from where it was the previous season in Tampa Bay (a year where his OZS rate was at an all-time high at nearly 66-percent). His xGF/60 rate however, dropped significantly (from .26 to -.15), as could be expected from both the deployment change and the aforementioned adjustment to playing alongside lesser talent.

In a very small sample size with the Avalanche this season (nine games to be exact), Namestnikov showed flashes of the player we saw early in his career with the Lightning. It comes as no surprise that this newfound success (in what I must again stress is a very small sample), came with Nathan MacKinnon as his primary pivot.

At the end of the day, we’re talking about a complimentary forward who excels alongside offensively dynamic players. He can also be a positive presence skating with a linemate (or two) who are very good in transition, an area where Namestnikov has been largely underwhelming overall.

Defensively, while he certainly isn’t what you’d call a shutdown forward, he won’t hurt your team either. That impact seems to be less reliant on his teammates than his offensive numbers are.

According to Evolving Hockey’s contract projections, they expect Namestnikov to command four years at around $4.17 million AAV on the open market. That’s a hefty cost for a player that doesn’t drive possession, or offensive opportunity. If he continues the same level of play he displayed to finish the 2019-20 regular season in the playoffs, there will be a competitive market for his services, right or not.

If EH’s figure turns out to be accurate, the Sabres should avoid pursuing him. Though he is an interesting experiment for a talented team that can afford to let him serve as a complementary piece, Buffalo isn’t in a position to do that. They would need him to be a line-driving presence for that cost, which he hasn’t shown he can be with any semblance of consistency.

If Kevyn Adams does end up pursuing and subsequently acquiring Namestnikov on the open market, he better become very comfortable with the idea of him playing alongside Jack Eichel. Otherwise, he’d be a long-term, and very expensive roll of the dice in the middle-six.

TOI, xG, and Deployment Metrics courtesy of Natural Stat Trick

Shot Heatmaps courtesy of Hockeyviz

GAR Over Time Chart courtesy of Evolving Hockey

Photo Credit: Raj Mehta-USA TODAY Sports