Canucks Army Free Agent Profiles: Dale Weise
7 years ago
Dale Weise scored a goal in the 2016 playoffs for the Chicago Blackhawks, in the four games he played of their seven game series. Dale Weise had an assist in the fifteen regular season games he played for the Blackhawks. In total, he picked up two points in nineteen games- not exactly the most impressive resume.
To be fair to Weise, this sort of disappearance was rather out of character for his general career path. Known for a few clutch moments in Montreal in the playoffs and being a bit of a shift-distruber, Weise just didn’t really fit into the Blackhawks in his time there.
But for whatever reason, Chicago Dale Weise wasn’t anywhere close to the same player production wise like he’d been come to be known in his career.
Heading into the offseason, will this recency bias affect Weise’s value?
If he returns to his regular form, he’s proven himself as a dependable player and is right in the glory years of his career at age 27: but does he fit into Vancouver?
Hero Chart
Weise brings a bit of offensive side to the table, and he’s been a respectable enough producer, slotting into between a third and second line role. He’s not exactly an anchor and his playmaking abilities speak for themselves in the Hero chart, but he’s not exactly a hidden gem either.
Career Statistics
The best work of Weise’ career arguably came at the start of this season in Montreal, after being traded there from Vancouver for Raphael Diaz. Perhaps prematurely moved out of Vancouver, as Diaz never really stuck, Weise has at least forged out a career as a regular NHLer.
The Scouting Report
From Jared Book, at Habs Eyes on the Prize:
The fact is, Dale Weise is a bottom-six player who has a penchant for coming up with huge goals and antics that increase his perceived value. And as an unrestricted free-agent, that’s a dangerous combination for teams.
For every chest bump, there’s a turnover. For every break he gets on a chip off the glass, there’s a time he leaves the defensive zone too early.
It was a year ago yesterday that Weise scored the tying goal in the third period and the winning goal in overtime in game three of the Atlantic Division semi-final. It’s one of those games that skews your perception of what he really is.
The Fit
The fit is there if Weise’s contract is in the low range (around $1 million for 1-2 seaons) and he’s able to produce between the 10-15 goals he’s been able to in the past, and – this is key- wants to come to Vancouver. They could sign him to replace, say, Brandon Prust, but other than that the Canucks don’t have tons of room to work with. This team’s not signing a superstar this offseason unless something drastic happens, but a player like Weise could slot into the bottom six of this roster.
Weise has got a bit of a physical edge to his game, but his production has been good enough that he’s more than just a pest.
Bringing back Weise for a second go around in Vancouver wouldn’t be the worst move the team’s ever pulled off, as he’s a generally cheap option and has shown to be an acceptable depth forward, especially in Montreal. At age 27, a one or two year deal doesn’t seem out of the question for Weise, and he’s unlikely to be landing a long-term deal anyways as he’s the kind of player who’s.
However, it’s worrying that his production and ice time declined heavily in Chicago. If they don’t have much of a use for him, playing him just an average of 9:57 a night, does it make a whole lot of sense to bring him back to Vancouver?
In the best case scenario for the Canucks if they were to be interested in bringing Weise back, they’d be able to leverage his declining production into a cheaper contract than anticipated earlier in the year, and hope that other teams aren’t quite nearly as interested.
In the worst case scenario, they’ll overvalue him and sign him to a multi-year deal at $3 million or more, as he is coming off his best two years of his career. They don’t have tons of cap space as is, and it’s a scary thought to think of Jim Benning falling too far in love with a guy solely due to a few big goals in the playoffs.
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