Trevor Daley’s time with the Chicago Blackhawks was shorter than expected. After being traded to the Blackhawks in a deal for Patrick Sharp, he was wheeled to Pittsburgh for Rob Scuderi on Monday after just 29 games. In an interview with Yahoo!, Daley thinks that he didn’t get a fair shake in terms of ice time.
“I don’t know that I got the opportunity to even know that I couldn’t fit into the system, and that’s what’s obviously most disappointing. (…) You move and you expect to be a part of it and it isn’t being given to you, so you’re always questioning, ‘is it me?’ or ‘what it is?’ I spent the last two months questioning, ‘where am I going?’ Like, ‘why is this happening?’ It’s part of this game. It’s the way this game works. It’s safe to say I got to see it first hand.”
The stats bear him out as Daley has gone from 22:53 per game to 14:46. He hasn’t finished a season with under 20 minutes a game since the 07-08 season, and 14:46 is his lowest ice time per game in his career. And what makes the least sense is that Daley’s advanced numbers weren’t horrible at all. His Corsi For % and Relative CF% was pretty good in its small sample size. And his +/- improved from last year’s Stars to this year’s Blackhawks despite only getting one point as a result of Patrick Kane’s multitude of points this year.
But with three defensemen in the top 50 in average ice time, it had to be tough to find meaningful ice time for Daley, who wasn’t required to do as much as he had to do in Dallas for some subpar teams in recent history. Now he goes to Pittsburgh where he’ll surely get some meaningful ice time with Kris Letang on IR. Having him replace Scuderi will be a significant upgrade for the Penguins, who are finding their way after changing coaches. Still, It’s very strange that a coaching staff as good as the one in Chicago couldn’t find a way to have Daley help out.
“Chicago – every part of playing there, being there, the guys, everything I heard about Chicago was unreal and everything lived up to it. The only thing that I didn’t like about Chicago was the games, which is a pretty big part.”
Yeah, I’d say that’s a pretty big part of playing hockey in … well, anywhere. But things should improve for him in Pittsburgh.
