Alumni Report: Luke Glendening and the Value of a Roleplayer
This week’s Red Wings Alumni Report focuses on the value Luke Glendening brings to the Tampa Bay Lightning, with notes on Tyler Bertuzzi, Andreas Athanasiou, Filip Hronek and Nick Leddy.
Mandatory Credit: John E. Sokolowski-USA TODAY Sports - Alumni Report: Luke Glendening and the Value of a RoleplayerWhen I was growing up, my dad always loved Luke Glendening. I mean, what’s not to like in his game — faceoff wins, corner battles and back then the rare-yet-too-common goal coming out of the penalty box. My dad spent about as much time praising Glendening as he did critiquing Detroit's rebuild efforts, which is saying something for anyone who watched this team from 2017 to 2020. Glendening plays the kind of simple hockey that is easy to love.
Most of all, Glendening knows his role. He constantly grinds down his opponents through a lot of unrecognized sacrifice. The love-tap checks away from the play, the cross checks at the net and the brunt of the bullrush on faceoffs — Glendening takes a beating in the process, but he does so to benefit his teammates. That’s why two contenders in Dallas and Tampa Bay have signed him since he left Detroit. That’s why he has been so effective for the Lightning so far this season
Primarily, Glendening is a defensive faceoff roleplayer who can grind down the clock without making mistakes and kill penalties, too. Only four players in the NHL have started a higher percentage of shifts in the defensive zone this season than Glendening’s 26.6% and his 56.4% faceoff win percentage ranks 15th among centers. Despite a high percentage of his play occurring in the defensive zone — including a team-leading 166 minutes shorthanded — he has only made one defensive zone turnover according to MoneyPuck. Glendening even has 10 goals to boot, which is a nice bonus for a player who does a lot of the dirty work. Overall, he plays a squeaky clean defensive game that the Lightning can lean on.
Statistics hardly capture the impact that Glendening can have on a team, because his niche role can help a team greatly in the playoffs. For all the glory of scoring, players like Glendening make their living by drying up that scoring. If teams don’t have a guy like him on the roster, games can become scoring races that get out of hand, proving harder to control. Successful performances in the playoffs are those that are calm and controlled, and coaches build their game plans to do so. Glendening is a player that makes those plans come to life, all for the dirt-cheap price of $1.6 million. The economy of his price tag makes his role even greater.
That Glendening has preserved such a defensive role when he’ll turn 35 this month is a testament to the way he has developed his game. When he was younger and with Detroit, he took risks using his speed to try and turn transition offense. While he isn’t passing up opportunities presented to him, Glendening has tamped down the risky plays in his game. It’s no accident that the past two seasons marked the fewest turnovers of his career.
Glendening isn’t a gamebreaker, but he doesn’t have to be. He plies his trade by winning defensive battles and eating minutes so that his team’s stars can take the ice and win hockey games. For a Tampa Bay team that’s a lot better than its wild card spot standing, that style will prove even more valuable in the playoffs.
Maybe that’s what I didn’t see when my dad used to rave about Glendening’s game. Maybe my dad was right. Because years later, Glendening is still providing value to his teams, and with the playoffs nearing, that value is expected to only rise.
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Andreas Athanasiou has played 10 games for Chicago since coming back from a core injury, scoring three points in that span. Injuries like he sustained are difficult to come back from immediately, though a nearing offseason will give him a chance to get back to his usual shape ahead of next season. It’s fortunate that such an injury happened when he was already under contract for another season, otherwise the injury might have affected his career even more. He scored 40 points for the Hawks when he was healthy last season.
Tyler Bertuzzi started the season off slowly, but he has found a scoring blaze in recent weeks. In the past 17 games since he scored a hat trick against Colorado on Feb. 24, Bertuzzi has 15 points and 12 of his 19 goals. He didn’t have that automatic scoring touch last season, but maybe he just had to see three go in against the Avs to get his swagger back. Bertuzzi’s stick could be key for a Toronto Maple Leafs team that will face the likes of Florida or Boston in the first round of the playoffs.
Filip Hronek is in the opposite boat of Bertuzzi as of late. After scoring 44 points in his first 61 games of the season playing in Vancouver, Hronek cooled off to just a pair of assists for his efforts across the past 13 games. Part of that reduction in offense might be due to the way defensive responsibilities are prioritized as the playoffs near — the Canucks want Hronek to sit back and let his defense partner, Quinn Hughes, lead the offensive charge and take the risks. Hronek’s lack of scoring might be a change of pace compared to the rest of the season, but it doesn’t mean he’s ineffective because of it.
Finally, in the first ever Alumni Report, I wrote about Nick Leddy’s usage for the St. Louis Blues. That hasn’t changed much since. He played more than 22 minutes in 13 out of 16 games since March. About 20.7% of his shifts start in the defensive zone, ranking seventh among all defensemen right between Jake Walman ahead and Moritz Seider behind. Not only is Leddy playing a lot, but he’s playing a lot of hard minutes.
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