Breaking: Christian Wolanin Waived
In a bizarrely timed piece of news, the Ottawa Senators have waived defenceman Christian Wolanin.
Wolanin was placed on irrevocable waivers at noon today and teams will have 24 hours to put in a claim on the 26-year old puck-moving defenceman.
It has not been an easy season for the charismatic defenceman. After missing the bulk of the 2019-20 season to a torn labrum that he suffered in training camp, Wolanin never really found his groove.
When he is playing with confidence, there is an enticing amount of offensive talent there. What is clear from today’s move however is that the coaching staff simply does not have any confidence in his defensive aptitude. And after exploring and exhausting their trade avenues, the decision to put Wolanin on waivers and risk losing another asset for nothing was made.
Make no mistake, Wolanin’s defensive contributions were clearly lacking. As HockeyViz.com’s isolated impact shows, as impressive as Wolanin’s five-on-five offensive impact was, he gives up almost as much on the defensive end.
Looking historically at Wolanin’s defensive contributions in other seasons, they were not that bad.
Ignoring the three-game sample size from the 2019-20 season, Wolanin looked okay in insulated minutes in the 2018-19 season when he played 30 games.
The timing of Wolanin’s release just seems bizarre.
For the Senators to write him off after he’s played in 15 games coming off a major injury, seems shortsighted. As a controlled asset, the Senators needed to dress Wolanin for 13 more games to ensure that he did not become a group VI unrestricted free agent this summer. With the playoffs out of reach and there being no long-term fits on the left side, I don’t really understand why the organization would not give Wolanin the opportunity to continue to play games and hopefully improve.
With Erik Brannstrom playing down in Belleville because of concerns over his defensive game, nobody should want to watch Braydon Coburn or Erik Gudbranson play out the string in their respective Senators careers at the expense of younger players who have some upside.
My concern is that Wolanin’s two most common defence partners this season have been Josh Brown and Erik Gudbranson. So not only has Wolanin played sparingly in 15 games this season, he has spent most of his ice time playing alongside two noted anchors on the backend. It should not be used as an all-encompassing excuse for his poor play, but there is something to be said about Wolanin not having been put in a position to succeed. From an evaluation standpoint, to give up on Wolanin without using the last 21 games as an opportunity to play him with different players and evaluate his game, just seems like poor asset management. Why not give him five to seven games with Artyom Zub to get a better gauge on what he may or may not be capable of?
If he sucks during that stretch of games, at least it would be more acceptable and rational than cutting bait with a player that you could keep under team control simply because they haven’t played well in a 15-game sample while playing with some of the league’s worst defencemen.
The only explanations I can arrive at is that the Senators are really confident that: 1) Jake Sanderson may leave school early and join the organization this year; 2) impending UFA Mike Reilly is closer to signing a contract extension; or 3) Erik Brannstrom will be back shortly with the organization and will be used extensively down the stretch. (Note: I’ve seen others point to Jacob Bernard-Docker coming up too, but he plays the right side and shouldn’t affect Wolanin’s place.)
Nothing else makes sense… unless this is simply the action of an organization that is trying to accommodate a head coach who simply has no trust or faith in this defender.
Addendum
Yesterday I referred to the challenge that Christian Wolanin encountered by spending most of his minutes alongside partners like Erik Gudbranson and Josh Brown.
I had a little free time this morning to dig deeper into the numbers and using Evolving-Hockey.com’s defence pairing statistics tool, I was able to capture how players like Christian Wolanin and Mike Reilly have fared with their defensive partners at five-on-five this season.
Before I get into the numbers, please note that this is not to disparage Mike Reilly’s performance in anyway. He has had a pretty strong campaign and has been a good puck-moving defenceman for the team.
What the numbers highlight to me however, is how difficult it is for players — irrespective of talent — to play minutes alongside Brown and Gudbranson. When Reilly and Wolanin have been out there, the Senators have generally been outshot [shots (CF%) and shots on goal (SF%)] and outscored [goals (GF%) and expected goals (xGF%)].
Not surprisingly, both players have excelled when playing with the team’s best defensive defenceman, Artyom Zub.
Reilly and Zub have been exceptional together. Of the 138 defensive pairings in the NHL this season that have spent more than 100 five-on-five minutes together, Reilly and Zub have the league’s 14th-highest expected goals for percentage in the league.
Although Wolanin’s sample size of ice time alongside Zub is significantly less, the results are still pretty damn good. So, as disappointing as Wolanin’s season has been, I think viewing him through the lens of a player who: 1) arrived later to the professional ranks because he spent four seasons in college; 2) has spent considerable time on the shelf because of injury; 3) has been hampered by poor defensive partners; and 4) has to play with the smallest of margins for error because of the coaching staff’s lack of faith in the player; it’s easy to be empathetic to a player who has had their development stunted.
Despite his age, I believe the Wolanin that we see now isn’t truly representative of the talent he has. Although I think the offence is strong enough to carry him as an NHL regular, especially at the expense of unrestricted free agents to be in Gudbranson and Coburn, it seems like a waste not to afford him an opportunity to play more down the stretch.
Wolanin Clears Waivers
Christian Wolanin cleared waivers today at noon and has been assigned by the Senators to the team’s taxi squad. It’s fair to assume that he’ll eventually be sent to Belleville to play games, but at this point, it seems like this turn of events will ensure that he will leave the organization as a Group VI unrestricted free agent this summer.