The Montreal Canadiens can turn Victor Mete’s year into a valuable deal
By Omar L
His average ice time from last season of 17:46 dropped to 16:00 as Mete got much easier competition before injuries took him out of the lineup.
On the surface, the Montreal Canadiens have a lot of evidence against Mete to keep his extension fairly favourable. That’s not to say he had a horrible season. Mete had his best defensive year at 5v5 with getting a larger split between d-zone and o-zone starts.
The Habs have started Mete in his own end more dating back to last season (o-zone: 48.6% | d-zone: 51.4%). This season saw the 2016 fourth-round pick start a lot more in the Habs’ end with a 46%-54% split.
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Despite the gradual demotion, Mete did spend the majority of the season in the top-four (58.52% with Weber and Petry), which explains the usage. But he was still putting up decent defensive numbers. The biggest improvement was in his shot suppression at which dropped from 5.16 to -0.82. Fewer shots were going towards the Habs net when Mete was on the ice vs. when he was off, which is nothing short of good for a defenceman.
Similar improvements can be seen in his relative scoring chances against and high-danger scoring chances again, which were all in the negatives (-1.76 and -1.96, respectively).
Those aren’t the numbers that win a negotiation. They do help, but it’s mostly points, assists, usage and ice time that stand out the most.
Mete finally found the back of the net this season and added seven assists for a total of 11 points in 51 games. The overall total isn’t much, but it is an increase in point production from 0.18 last year to 0.22 this year.