Is Emberson's deal a missed opportunity?

Hear me out

If Ty Emberson plays fewer than 50 NHL games this season, he’ll be an unrestricted free agent come July 1, 2025. His one-year deal makes sense for San Jose in that regard. If he doesn’t perform — and so is a constant healthy scratch — or is injured again, the Sharks can wash their hands of him easily. I think the contract, which effectively avoids all risk, might have been a missed opportunity to gamble on the blueliner’s upside.

Plucked off waivers just before the 2023-24 season, Emberson established himself as the team’s fifth defenseman. In those minutes, Emberson received arguably the toughest defensive deployment of anyone on the Sharks.

He received very few offensive zone starts while gobbling up defensive shifts alongside Mario Ferraro. David Quinn and his staff also relied heavily on Emberson to defend late-in-game leads, however few of them there were last season.

The Emberson/Ferraro duo wasn’t tasked with an insurmountable shutdown role — Emberson played evenly against all opponents’ forwards — but the 24-year-old was not sheltered by any means. Despite being asked to do much with little, Emberson turned out stellar defensive results.

The blue blob in the bottom left of this graphic shows that, after adjusting for teammates, opponents, zone starts, and score, Emberson’s individual impact was to make it 12 percent less likely opponents scored against the Sharks at 5-on-5. Evolving Hockey’s even-strength defensive impact model shows that only 22 defenders with 30 or more NHL games last season had a stronger performance than Emberson.

Despite Emberson’s stellar defensive play, the model above rates him as just a typical third-pair defenseman. Evolving Hockey’s expected goals above replacement model had Emberson as a 4/5 defenseman last season, after accounting for his impact on both sides of the ice. Dom Luszczyszyn of the Athletic’s model gave Emberson a +5 Net Rating, a measurement reflective of first-pair status.

Great. This is pointless. The Sharks have anywhere between a third-pair and first-pair defenseman. He’s signed for one more season at one percent of the salary cap. It’s a tomato, tomahto situation. Why am I even bothering?

Because, that wide range of outcomes and uncertainty is exactly something the Sharks should be exploiting. Dom L’s model sees Emberson as a $5.8 million player. Evolving Hockey’s goals above replacement model thinks he was worth $6.7 million last season.

Dom L and Evolving Hockey’s goals above replacement (different from expected goals above replacement) model rely on box score stats to generate a value. If those models represent his true impact, Emberson was a top-pair defenseman last season. If the underlying models — HockeyViz and Evolving Hockey’s expected goals above replacement — are closer to the truth, then he’s still a valuable third-pair guy. Certainly worth more than the $950k he’ll make next season.

I wonder if Grier shouldn’t have signed him to something like Matt Benning’s contract from two offseasons ago. Benning signed a four-year, $1.25 million average-annual-value contract, then worth 1.5 percent of the total cap. A similar contract for Emberson this summer would’ve been a four-year, $1.32 million contract. Or maybe Emberson signs a deal similar to what Evolving Hockey projected for a four-year pact: $2.9 million annually.

Even if Emberson’s 2023-24 season was only worth somewhere between a bottom-pair salary and $6.7 million, he’d still likely be outperforming a longer-term deal.

Emberson not a big deal; also not a model contract for emerging youngsters

I would be remiss if I didn’t mention the major caveat for all this. Ty Emberson only suited up for 30 games last season, a total of 499 minutes. The small ice-time sample size widens his range of outcomes, making it possible Emberson takes a big step back next season.

If that happened, Sharks brass would look silly for betting on an unproven 24-year-old who had just broken into the league. After all, the older someone is when he becomes an NHL regular, the less likely it is he becomes an all-star. Grier probably bet correctly; it’s unlikely Emberson’s contract has much of an impact on the Sharks’ fortunes. Limiting the risk while enjoying the potential reward next year is a fine approach.

Yet, there’s a chance the front office might look even sillier for passing on a potential screaming value. While we can imagine Emberson failing to live up to his first 30 games, we can also see him paired with someone more effective in transition (Walman? Vlasic?), in more neutral deployment, behind exciting young playmakers at forward. Add a new coaching regime to the mix and, who knows? Maybe his next contract projection will creep up closer to what two public models decided he was worth last year.

A bet on Emberson would be a bet on the Sharks’s trajectory and on Grier’s team-building prowess. If Emberson’s results improve, it’s likely due in part to an improved team environment. Moving forward, I think the front office should take more risks with younger players’ contracts. Hitting on one or two value deals during players’ primes would be a great way to save money for what everyone hopes will be big-money extensions for Celebrini and Smith down the road.