The Pittsburgh Penguins signed Blake Comeau as a free agent last summer without much fanfare. He was a 28-year-old veteran that had spent the previous two seasons playing a fourth line role, so the assumption was that he would wind up in the same role with the Penguins, possibly pushing Craig Adams for playing time and working on the penalty kill.
He did have a past history of working as a top six scorer, but that was back in his early years with the New York Islanders. His recent performances led many to believe that his career was trending downward and that is why there was so little interest in free agency, thus allowing the Penguins to sign him for just $700 thousand. Nobody was prepared for him to have as strong of a season as he did with the Penguins.
2014-15 Season: Comeau had quite an impressive year, scoring 0.26 goals per game and 0.51 points per game, which is the best he has played since his peak with the Islanders in the 2009-10 and 2010-11 seasons. Additionally, he proved to be a more effective two-way player as he posted a career high plus/minus of +6 as well as a career high 2.41 shots per game.
In 5-on-5 situations, he was fourth amongst forwards on the team with 1.00 goals per 60 minutes of ice time and fifth with 2.01 points per 60. For offensive possession, he was the eighth best forward with 59.2 shot attempts for per 60 minutes of ice time, however defensively he had allowed a team high 40.5 unblocked shot attempts against per 60. Despite the less than impressive defensive numbers, he still came out ahead with a positive shot differential as the team generated more chances than their opponents.
When the season began, Comeau was off to a hot start and quickly moved up the lineup. If he had continued at that pace he may very well have set new career highs for himself. He then went out with a wrist injury in late December, and after missing 20 games returned in early February. Upon his return he continued to play well for a few weeks, but then ended up struggling over the final two months of the season.
Looking Ahead So why did Comeau suddenly have such a strong performance after all these years? One explanation is that he spent over half of his ice time skating with Evgeni Malkin, and if we also include the time spent alongside Sidney Crosby he spent roughly three quarters of the year skating in the Top 6. On a team with talented superstars like Pittsburgh that is certainly going to have an impact on a player’s stats.
Another explanation, and a possible warning sign to look out for, is his PDO of 101.5. PDO is simply a combination of the player’s on-ice shot percentage and save percentage; it is used as a proxy for identifying influences from luck. A player with a PDO above 100.0 is assumed to have achieved some of their success due to puck luck and is often expected to decline and “regress to the mean” in future seasons. So chances are his performance will dip a bit next year.
During the breakup day interviews Comeau did tell reporters that he would like another chance with the Penguins, and last month his agent Kurt Overhardt told Mike Halford of NBC Sports “[Blake] is definitely interested in the possibility of returning to Pittsburgh, it’s our goal to try and work something out, but of course we always have July 1 pending.”
Of course there lies the difficulty in this matter. Comeau had such an impressive year that he has garnered a lot of interest from teams for the approaching off-season. He may very well wind up getting offers from other teams that the Penguins couldn’t hope to match, and it is all but certain he will be looking at a significant raise.
Perhaps, if the price is too high, the Penguins shouldn’t focus on re-signing Comeau, but rather on finding the new Comeau: a player with a past history of success that has recently been down on his luck, but with a change of scenery could find himself and post an impressive performance. With the ever tricky salary cap situation it is in the team’s best interest to find as many value players as they can.
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