Confirmed with Link: Vatanen to CAR for Janne Kuokkanen, Frederik Claesson and conditional 4th rounder

[longislanddevil]

Vatanen has injury setback, further away from debut with Hurricanes

Looks like Carolina is going to have to make playoffs with Vats playing in 70% of those games. That conditional 4th becoming a 3rd is certainly in jeopardy. In retrospect, Fitz had his hands tied as this injury was clearly worse than we knew. I have little doubt this affected the trade return in a big way. It’s unfortunate. We should be glad we even netted Kuokkanen, a previous 2nd round selection. I was underwhelmed at the time but have since changed my tune due to the extenuating circumstances.

 

[NjDevsRR]

I think the trade was OK, but Vat's had been dealing with injuries prior to us trading for him. So he didn't become injury prone, he already was.

This isn’t true. He played over 80% in every NHL season up until 2018-2019. I wouldn’t call that injury prone. Players miss 10 games a season all the time.

Hes been injury prone since 2018, that I will agree with.

 

[Billdo]

People will still bitch about the return despite his injury obviously being pretty significant. I struggle to understand how you can have a setback with a bruise though so I'm assuming it's not JUST a bruise.

 

[SteveCangialosi123]

This isn’t true. He played over 80% in every NHL season up until 2018-2019. I wouldn’t call that injury prone. Players miss 10 games a season all the time.

Hes been injury prone since 2018, that I will agree with.

He had major shoulder surgery in his last season in Anaheim. He is definitely injury prone.

 

[Guttersniped]

This isn’t true. He played over 80% in every NHL season up until 2018-2019. I wouldn’t call that injury prone. Players miss 10 games a season all the time.

Hes been injury prone since 2018, that I will agree with.

Sami tore his labrum in 2017 playoffs and had shoulder surgery that June. He rehabbed over the summer and was able to start playing at the end of October. I don’t know if that sort of thing is tied to injury proneness but it’s a serious injury.

[edit: I didn’t see the previous post about this.]

 

[NjDevsRR]

Sami tore his labrum in 2017 playoffs and had shoulder surgery that June. He rehabbed over the summer and was able to start playing at the end of October. I don’t know if that sort of thing is tied to injury proneness but it’s a serious injury.

[edit: I didn’t see the previous post about this.]

Yeah before that he was fine, and he was fine the year we got him. All these other injuries are just bizarre stuff, concussions, deep bone contusions, etc...just bad luck. I feel for the guy because he is a solid player to have but it looks like this will hurt the salary he is going to get in FA.

 

[NjDevsRR]

He had major shoulder surgery in his last season in Anaheim. He is definitely injury prone.

And he was fine that year after the shoulder surgery and played 70+ games.

Since then he has had awful luck with concussions and stuff like bone contusions. Has nothing to do with the shoulder. Which all proves my point that he was not injury prone before 2018. One big injury before 2018 doesn’t make you injury prone. 3/4 injuries since then? Sure, injury prone.

 

[Triumph]

This isn’t true. He played over 80% in every NHL season up until 2018-2019. I wouldn’t call that injury prone. Players miss 10 games a season all the time.

Hes been injury prone since 2018, that I will agree with.

But they don't miss 10 games a season every year. Even in his healthiest seasons between 2014-15 and 2017-18, Vatanen's 281 games rank him 231st in the NHL in games played.

 

[NjDevsRR]

But they don't miss 10 games a season every year. Even in his healthiest seasons between 2014-15 and 2017-18, Vatanen's 281 games rank him 231st in the NHL in games played.

Whats the total pool from that list? Curious where hes at.

But my point remains, missing 10 games isn’t catastrophic. I can instantly think of two players who missed 20-30 games for 3-4 seasons recently. Trouba and Subban. They are both fine this season. You’ll find a ton of defenseman similar to that. Being ‘injury prone’ basically just comes down to luck, in most cases at least. Same thing goes for the opposite. Johansson was pretty much injury free before he got here. Did that mean he was indestructible? No, of course not. Just meant that he was lucky in that regard before coming here. Look at him now...

 

[Triumph]

Whats the total pool from that list? Curious where hes at.

But my point remains, missing 10 games isn’t catastrophic. I can instantly think of two players who missed 20-30 games for 3-4 seasons recently. Trouba and Subban. They are both fine this season. Being ‘injury prone’ basically just comes down to luck, in most cases at least.

There is no total pool because there's no way to easily sort players who played in all 4 seasons, or control them for being full-time players.

 

[NjDevsRR]

There is no total pool because there's no way to easily sort players who played in all 4 seasons, or control them for being full-time players.

Then how do we know if 231st is good mediocre or bad?

 

[Triumph]

Then how do we know if 231st is good mediocre or bad?

We can be pretty sure it isn't good because it's 231st - being 231st in anything in the NHL certainly isn't good. If we make a few inferences about who all were full time players over this period, assuming 12 players per team were full-time players over this stretch, that would put him right in the middle. I think an assumption that over 5 years there were 460 full-time players is pretty generous - so at best, he was middling. At worst he was probably around 30th percentile.

 

[NjDevsRR]

We can be pretty sure it isn't good because it's 231st - being 231st in anything in the NHL certainly isn't good. If we make a few inferences about who all were full time players over this period, assuming 12 players per team were full-time players over this stretch, that would put him right in the middle. I think an assumption that over 5 years there were 460 full-time players is pretty generous - so at best, he was middling. At worst he was probably around 30th percentile.

I think it would be middle of the pack. But with a stat like that I am sure there would be a big change in ranking for a few games difference in both directions.

 

[Guttersniped]

Vatanen isn’t cursed and doomed to never play 70+ games again but teams like to move on from players who have multiple injuries and just let someone else deal with the risk.

It likely involves irrational frustration as much as risk assessment. I remember Dallas traded Langenbrunner because he had a random variety of injuries over several seasons and then he played 80+ games in most of his seasons in NJ. More recently it was clear the Ducks traded Kase because of his injury history and we’ll see if the Bruins benefited from their frustration.

 

[NJDevs26]

People will still bitch about the return despite his injury obviously being pretty significant. I struggle to understand how you can have a setback with a bruise though so I'm assuming it's not JUST a bruise.

That's why I was skeptical of the whole bruise diagnosis when he was already on the shelf for weeks. You don't miss weeks with a 'bruise'.

 

[NJDevils17]

Overcompensating for the bruise could lead to another injury. Similar to how NFL players tear their ACL and have hamstring injuries the next year.

Obviously less extreme but compensation injuries are legit

 

[Blackjack]

Vatanen isn’t cursed and doomed to never play 70+ games again but teams like to move on from players who have multiple injuries and just let someone else deal with the risk.

It likely involves irrational frustration as much as risk assessment. I remember Dallas traded Langenbrunner because he had a random variety of injuries over several seasons and then he played 80+ games in most of his seasons in NJ. More recently it was clear the Ducks traded Kase because of his injury history and we’ll see if the Bruins benefited from their frustration.

That's interesting, I hadn't thought of that angle before. I mean, obviously it's frustrating as a fan when a player can't stay in the lineup, but I didn't even think of it from a front office perspective, that maybe they just get frustrated and move on from a guy just because he's had bad luck with injury.

 

[Guttersniped]

That's interesting, I hadn't thought of that angle before. I mean, obviously it's frustrating as a fan when a player can't stay in the lineup, but I didn't even think of it from a front office perspective, that maybe they just get frustrated and move on from a guy just because he's had bad luck with injury.

It’s just an understandable reaction, GM can be both sympathetic and frustrated if a player underproduces due to injury over several seasons.

It’s funny how much I remember about the Langenbrunner trade. He had some random unrelated injuries for 3 years, I know one was a sports hernia, and the Dallas GM said something like “Jamie’s a great player but it’s just not working out here” and mentioned the injuries. Langs was bitter, he had a key part of their cup run and had been told he wasn’t going to traded right before he was traded.

I know insurance can be an issue as well, the cost conscious Ducks were wary of keeping Kase since they already have two more years of LTIRed Kessler. Maybe insurance doesn’t cover all the LTIR salary or maybe they won’t cover at risk players?

I don’t know how players’ insurance actually works because while I love the Devils and hockey in general I’m not going to voluntarily read about or try to learn more about insurance.

 

[Emperoreddy]

The concussions alone was good enough reason to move in from him instead of giving him a big contract.

Kuokkanen is also playing excellent and helping Bing to the playoffs while Vats isn’t even playing hockey right now.

 

[Blackjack]

It’s just an understandable reaction, GM can be both sympathetic and frustrated if a player underproduces due to injury over several seasons.

It’s funny how much I remember about the Langenbrunner trade. He had some random unrelated injuries for 3 years, I know one was a sports hernia, and the Dallas GM said something like “Jamie’s a great player but it’s just not working out here” and mentioned the injuries. Langs was bitter, he had a key part of their cup run and had been told he wasn’t going to traded right before he was traded.

I know insurance can be an issue as well, the cost conscious Ducks were wary of keeping Kase since they already have two more years of LTIRed Kessler. Maybe insurance doesn’t cover all the LTIR salary or maybe they won’t cover at risk players?

I don’t know how players’ insurance actually works because while I love the Devils and hockey in general I’m not going to voluntarily read about or try to learn more about insurance.

I believe that all the players are covered by an umbrella policy, but certain guys with pre-existing shit won't get covered unless the team pays extra. Apparently Nathan Horton was one of these special cases, and Columbus elected not to pay the extra premium and were stuck paying his salary when his career ended.

Anyway, point of all this is that (almost) all players are covered by insurance, but just because a team puts a player on LTIR, they are not required to put in an insurance claim. So when Hossa or Callahn or whoever gets "injured" at the end of their career, the decision of the club to claim or not-claim insurance is a pretty good clue as to what's going on.

Of course, if the NHL cared at all about fairness, clubs that put a player on LTIR would be required to put in an insurance claim, since the insurer has a vested interest in making sure the player really is unable to play. This is just one of the many aspects of the salary cap whose sole function is to allow teams to cheat.

 

[Eye of Ra]

4 game so far for Claesson ...do you guys think he is a keeper?

 

[theoptimist]

4 game so far for Claesson ...do you guys think he is a keeper?

he's hot garbage

 

[Darkauron]

Kuok kalled up

 

[TheUnseenHand]

4 game so far for Claesson ...do you guys think he is a keeper?

He's awful.

 

[glenwo2]

He had major shoulder surgery in his last season in Anaheim. He is definitely injury prone.

We were fortunate he managed to stay relatively-healthy while a Devil.