The Florida Panthers Should Protect Alex Petrovic
The Expansion Draft is on the horizon and the Florida Panthers need to decide who they are going to protect. One player they should protect is defenseman Alex Petrovic.
I have grown to like Alex as a player. Before, I truly never appreciated what he had to bring to the table. He isn’t a guy who will put up a lot of goals or assists, but is someone who will cover you defensively. Alex’s game is purely defensive and playing the body.
After the season in which we had (especially defensively), it’s clear that the defensive pairings need to be re-juggled. The Cats have too many offensive minded defenseman and not enough defensive defenseman. Good teams have a balance within their back line. I personally like defenseman’s who know when to rush and when to stay back.
Petro was perfect at this. Not that he would rush the puck at all, but the instincts that he had were quite impressive. How often would you see Alex get caught rushing the puck? Answer to that would be hardly ever.
As many of you know, I am really pro-analytics. In this case however, I will not stress over his advanced statistics at all. Not that they were bad by any means. He ended the season with a respectable CF% of 50.79% and a FF% (Fenwick for) of 51.27%. For those of you who don’t know, the difference between the two is that Corsi includes shots on goal, missed shots, and block shots, where as Fenwick does not include block shots. The reason why I don’t look into his “advanced stats figures” is because they purely focus on the offensive side of the game. That’s not Alex’s job nor role.
On the defensive end, Petro is a gritty defenseman who isn’t afraid to throw his body around. He simply takes no prisoners. Alex is simple yet effective when taking the body and eliminating any rushes coming at our end of the ice. An area I really love about his game is the way he meets his opponent right at the blue line. More specifically, he prevents the opponent from entering the zone without possession of the puck, and also allows for his defensive partner to retrieve the puck at the same time.
Next: Florida Panthers: Jussi Jokinen Is Declining Quickly
The last area of Petro’s game which I admire most, is his ability to hold the zone while in the offensive end. I’ve always been a sucker for defenseman who have the ability to hold the zone tight. I personally believe that it’s the most underrated skill that a defenseman could have. Alex was easily our best defenseman at holding the zone. A major area of concern for our defense, was simply holding the zone. I can safely say that Petro was easily our best defenseman at doing that.
So why should we protect Alex Petrovic? At just 25 years of age, he is not only a solid defender who can defend, but he is also cheap at just $1,050,000 in salary. Going forward with contract negotiations, it’s unlikely that Alex would make more than two million in salary. Analytics aside (for his case only), Alex plays with heart and courage. Something analytics does not calculate nor show. The Cats have enough offensive puck moving defenseman. it’s time we keep and add another defenseman who brings stability at the back. Losing Alex wouldn’t be a huge loss offensively, but would defensively. His “defensive first” mentality is what this team needs and allowing Las Vegas to take that would seriously soften our defense.