the number one lesson that every front office has (hopefully) learned by this point is to not overpay for shooting percentage. his production this year was in-line with two guys who infamously got overpaid based on outlier shooting years, and his shooting percentage was
significantly higher than those guys.
Player | Statline | P/GP | SH% |
12-13 David Clarkson | 30-16-46 in 82gp | 0.56 | 13.2% |
14-15 Matt Beleskey | 22-10-32 in 65gp | 0.49 | 15.2% |
23-24 Dakota Joshua | 18-14-32 in 63gp | 0.51 | 21.4% |
his line also got
sheltered quite a bit this year (miller/pettersson drew the harder matchups) and his underlying numbers were
putrid when he wasn't with garland (56% CF with,
37.3% CF without)
that's not to say he's a bad player, but this team has done the whole "overpay a bottom-sixer who was an effective passenger on a really good team" thing a few times (riley nash, sean kuraly) and it doesn't move the needle.
basically, if the rationale for adding joshua is improve the top six, he's not that guy. if it's to add toughness to the bottom-six, there are far cheaper players out there (i.e. lomberg or duhaime).