This may or may not be the most hated article that I’ll ever write. I’m aware, so troll on.

Look, there are many extremely toxic contracts in the NHL, that are extremely detrimental to the team because of their ridiculous length, cap hit, and a players poor play. Jeff Finger, isn’t one of them. Sure, he’s by no means worth it to the Toronto Maple Leafs, filled to the brim with very good defencemen. Sure, his contract was a big WTF when he first signed it. But when you really look at things, its not so bad. Look, I know you’re laughing your asses off  right now, but give this article a chance and hear me out.

Origins of FingerMania

The Legend of Jeff Finger started on the greatest of all freak out days – July 1st. For fans, this is the time of year where most of their predictions will be answered, more so than any other day. And when something smacks them in the face with surprise, it really smacks them in the face.

Sure enough, we got that. But it wasn’t so much a smack in the face, but rather having the Hubble Space Telescope forget about the laws of gravity, come crashing towards earth, and land directly on our midsections. With a misfired nuclear missile going for the face. On top of the relatively normal signing of Dallas-then, Calgary-now Left Winger Niklas Hagman, the Leafs signed an enterprising, middle aged yet inexperienced defenceman named Jeff Finger.

And it was for 4 years. And 3.5 million dollars per, to boot.

I can still remember the reactions. HFBoards, for once, put it the best, with the very first post being “Who the fuck is Jeff Finger?”. About what I would’ve thought, if I didn’t upload a youtube video of him recently having one of the worst fights I’ve ever seen with someone that I can’t remember now. My question – “This is a typo, right? He signed for 3.5 total, not a year, right?”. It had really stumbled many – yes, the guy had show potential with Colorado, and was a serviceable defenceman with the Colorado Avalanche, but 3.5 million dollars a year? This couldn’t have been serious. As confirmation came out that it was the real deal, many speculated the senile Cliff Fletcher accidentally put per year instead of total in his contract, and its past correcting. Some said the senile Cliff Fletcher confused him with Kurt Sauer. And many more theories bounced around, largely around Cliff Fletcher being senile.

The point is, from the second the Leafs signed him, a fanbase was incredibly confused, and for good reason, disliking of the signing. It seemed to be completely out of nowhere, and for an absolutely questionable amount. Really, he’d have to be nothing short of amazing to win the respect of fans.

His first year with the Leafs was decent, though obviously not up to the fans expectations, getting 6 goals and 17 helpers for a total of 23 points. He was also way up in the league’s stats for hits and blocked shots, something that is rarely noticed out of him. Many believe the fact that Pavel Kubina was kept due to Ron Wilson’s absolute mancrush on him (he thought if the Sharks got him at the 08 deadline, they would’ve won the cup), and the rapid emergence of Luke Schenn as an NHL ready player lead to Finger not really getting a fair shake at being a #2 or #3 defenceman on the Leafs to start with.

The next year would make matters even worse. Yes, Kubina was traded in a cap dump trade, bringing back fucknut Garnet Exelby, but this cap dump was to sign two more defencemen in Francois Beauchemin and Mike Komisarek, now leaving Finger stuck at a minimum of #5 on the depth chart. He was poised to start the year as a 5 or 6 defenceman, when his lack of ability to catch a break continued in the emergence of prospect Carl Gunnarsson. As if new players didn’t already pose a threat to him, he had to deal with a rookie coming out of nowhere for the second year in a row. This lead to him and Exelby splitting the years duties 50/50, with each playing approximately 40 games. With his luck, the injuries of Mike Komisarek were offset by Ian White deciding he’d go from 6th defenceman to superman for a few months. And when White left, Captain-on-Monday Dion Phaneuf came in, meaning Finger was nowhere near the top end. Back to those 39 games. Finger still put up a decent 10 points in that time, on pace for a 20 point year on the 3rd pair with next to no powerplay time, which is actually rather respectable. But its still not enough, as he’s being paid to the tune of a little less than $100,000 per game.

This leaves the current situation – the Leafs are looking to make a massive splash on the market to acquire top line talent. Yes, the shopping of Tomas Kaberle is part of this, leaving one more spot for Finger to climb (making him behind Phaneuf, Beauchemin, Komisarek, Schenn, and Gunnarsson in the system as a max 6th defenceman). With the Leafs looking to save money up to take a run at someone elite like Ilya Kovalchuk or Patrick Marleau, its entirely likely that Finger can get the fate that few like – being sent to play in Ricoh Coliseum to play with the Toronto Marlies, unless someone claims him on waivers on the way. And at 3.5 million – it wont happen, as the stigma that is Jeff Finger’s contract is seen throughout the league.

There’s only one issue though – Mr. Finger is a victim of lineup circumstance, as we can see. He hasn’t really been given the minutes to produce statistically, particularly this year. Could it be possible that the thing that’s keeping him overpaid is a simple numbers game that’s giving him limited minutes? Or would he still be bad if given 3.5M minutes? Here’s what I figured out.

Comparison – Bring in the Charts

Seen in my Kulemin comparison article, I’ve gone to the comparison chart method. Here I compare his goals, assists, points, penalty minutes, shots, hits, blocked shots, giveaways, and takeaways, to 30 other NHL defencemen who all make anywhere between 2.5-4 million, with the exceptions of Kim Johnsson (4.8), Mike Komisarek (4.5), and Wade Redden (6.25). As you can see, the 40 games that he played don’t really help his case. Anyway, when a comparison is better than finger, he gets a green block. Worse a red, and equal a yellow. These are further put into a “Better Than Finger” stat, that scores those blocks. 1 point for a green, 0 for a yellow, and -1 for a red. With the 39 games played, he loses out most of the time, except to approximately equal or less game played players Brendan Witt, Mathieu Schneider, and Mike Komisarek. Cory Sarich, on the other hand, just plain sucks, desperately losing despite about 1.5x the games played. AND he makes more money, at 3.6 million.

As you can see, at 40 games played, Finger is by no means worth is bacon against these players, who average out to be 18 point defencemen with decent blocked shot and hit counts, at 3.58M a year for 67 games played. Player X, the averaged stat of everyone, was a +6 in the Better Than Finger (the average was +3.83) But wait, is there any way to even out these minutes, to really see what they’re like? Lets see what happens when Finger, and everyone, plays 20 minutes a game, at 82 games a year. To even make things easier won the competition, I switched out the cap hit for a giveaway vs. takeaway ratio, of which Finger’s is rather bad. Lets see the results.

…your mind just blew up.

When given equal minutes, Finger seems to do rather well against many of these players, going on a 30 point pace, with out of this world blocked shot and hit counts. His giveaway/takeover ratio is weak, but other than that, that stat sheet looks good for 3.5 million. It looks even better when he wins the Better Than Finger event 20 out of 30 times, including having a perfect -10 against Komisarek and Sarich. Granted, this chart doesn’t neccessarily mean that he’s better than everyone they beat – people have down years, injuries to recover from, and other things like that. It also doesn’t account for stupid plays that might not be giveaways, which are often argued to happen to Finger (I still like to think they’re just noticed more cause they’re looking for them so they can criticize more. People who have hate on’s for players can do this rather well, as I’ve heard it for every Toronto defenceman at some point this year. Most of the hate being on Finger, most of it is noticed when its him.) But 2/3 of them is a lot more that I even though when I first created the article. At the worst, adjusting for other players having issues, it can be argued that he’s at least average compared to these guys if given similar situational time. Only one problem.

The Sad Truth – Why We Probably Can’t Give Him A Serious Chance

Its never going to happen, and for good reason. The fact is, the Leafs currently have one of the most stacked defensive cores right now. Names like Dion Phaneuf, Francois Beauchemin, and Mike Komisarek are rather hard to surpass, especially the first two, and possibly all three if Komisarek bounces back. Carl Gunnarsson and Luke Schenn continue to be on the rise, with word that the likes of Keith Aulie, Juraj Mikus, Jesse Blacker, and more prospects not being that far behind due to solid development. Finger simply doesn’t work as a 3rd pair defenceman, especially at that price. He could work somewhere else, for all we know, but the interest just isn’t there.

Conclusion

A combination of everyone jumping the gun and criticizing Finger’s arrival from the very second the contract was reported, and development in the Leafs defensive system has prevented Jeff Finger being any more than a bad reputation from his start here. It can definitely be argued that on another team, with more time, he could be a better defenceman statistically, at least, than anyone expected. But it won’t work here. Finger himself said way back when that he’d rather be on the Marlies playing hockey than on the Leafs sitting on the bench, because he just wants to play hockey.

And if an Ilya Kovalchuk comes in and says “I’d sign, but won’t you be 2.5 million over the cap?” you know damn well what Brian Burke’s next move is. And it’ll be a sensible move, as there isn’t much reason to keep Jeff up with everything considered.

For his sake, I hope that we’re all wrong, and that a trading partner can be found. But I have my doubts on that, and I hope he hopes playing in Ricoh. I’ll be watching him, and supporting him as he rips of the American Hockey League with high minutes. To the fans, it’ll be the best thing he’s ever done for this franchise, to him, he’ll be playing hockey 80 games a year again, and with him still making the same money there, he’ll probably be content knowing the circumstances.

Either that, or we trade off half our defence and let Finger be the consistent defenceman the stats prove he can be.

Yeah, the first one is probably the better option for more people. Its a sad truth for Finger, but that’s how it works in this salary cap era. All I’m saying is though, is that we’re not necessary talking about a horribly overpaid player here. He can be a player worth his money if he can get those minutes. He’s just horribly placed.

Who the fuck is Jeff Finger? He’s a #3 defenceman stuck on a team that makes him a victim of numbers. A player who confused many with his signing, for good reason, yet never had a chance to answer the questions asked of him. And I wish him all the best in the American Hockey League next year.