Breaking Down the Sean Monahan Signing
Examining Monahan's Current and Long-Term Role fit via Analytics, Film and Contract Contexts
The Blue Jackets signed Center Sean Monahan in Free Agencyon Monday. Aaron Portzline recently shared updated terms of the deal as well.
Monahan has a full NMC the first 3 seasons of the deal and a 15 team NTC the final two. He’s got $1.5 million signing bonuses each year and his salary dips in the middle of the year before ending at $4million with $1million signing bonus.
This deal isn’t structured in a way that a buyout is impossible.
In order to properly evaluate the deal we’ll have to look at two fronts: player quality and contract quality. To understand both, we’ll need to put them into context.
TL;DR
Sean Monahan is a middle-six center who will become the de-facto 1C for the Blue Jackets as a result of his chemistry with his Johnny Gaudreau. He’s a good roster fit because he’ll allow the Blue Jackets to slide other players into roles more appropriate for their current skill level while offering veterancy to the special teams groups.
The Blue Jackets were competing with Winnipeg for his signature but are losing some role-efficiency on the powerplay so he comes with a certain level of risk against his cap-hit. At 5 years, this deal cannot be considered a homerun but it’s most likely that Don Waddell was just trying to get on-base (to continue the baseball metaphor).
Whether this signing is considered a “win” or a poor risk depends on the next moves from Don Waddell. Monahan is only the first move in the context of Waddell’s restructuring so true evaluation will require patience. He should be considered the superior move to the more signficant boom-or-bust potential of Chandler Stephenson and Elias Lindholm.
If Monahan offers year-over-year stability for a team that continues re-tooling and/or enables the Blue Jackets to take high-win probability risks with later moves it will likely look like a good bet.
If he doesn’t re-kindle chemistry with Gaudreau, is an awkward role-fit on special teams or his injury history results in an early aging curve, his 3-year NMC and 5 year contract could be early dead weight that could undermine assets to be better used during Adam Fantilli’s prime.
The Player
The Stats
Sean Monahan posted 59 points in 83 games last season. At first glance, that’s an excellent and productive statline. His 1 point in 5 playoff games was less stellar but the Winnipeg Jets were summarily drowned by the Colorado Avalanche.
At 5v5, Monahan posted 32 points in 83 games, ranked 105th among forwards for production total.He scored at a rate of 1.84 points/60, which ranks 147th among forwards with 250 minutes, which puts him in the ballpark of players like: Philip Danault, Adam Henrique, Tyler Toffoli, Dylan Strome, Vincent Trocheck, Steven Stamkos, Martin Necas, Anze Kopitar. In fact, his 5v5 production was quite similar to Johnny Gaudreau.
On the powerplay, Monahan posted 21 points, ranked 60th among forwads, which is a similar number to Joe Pavelski, Cole Caufield, John Tavares, Tim Stutzle, Bo Hortvat, Evgeni Malkin, Mark Scheifele. Once again, very similar to Johnny Gaudreau’s 18 PP points.
On the surface, excellent second-line production across both game-states.
In Winnipeg, he was an excellent producer at 5v5 (thanks to an 18.75% shooting percentage) but was just average on the powerplay. In Montreal he was the opposite likely hard done by a low shooting percentage.
Career Trajectory
Prior to this season, Sean Monahan struggled greatly for the previous 3, largely due to a hip injury that we are assured has been fixed. Monahan’s best season came in 2018-19 not-coincidentally the last time he shared significant ice-time with Johnny Gaudreau.
2023-24 Analytics by Team
To fully understand Monahan, we’ll need to break his performance from 2023-24 into two parts split between the two teams he played for.
With Montreal, Monahan was a middle-six center primarily deployed with checking style players (Tanner Pearson and Jake Evans opposite Anderson, Gallagher) and a diversity of the team’s defense pairings (Matheson/Savard or Matheson/Barron until Matheson/Guhle was formed but also with Guhle/Barron).
The Canadiens found the slot when Monahan was on the ice but didn’t offset their defensive deficienies, which were great, while he was on the ice either. This probably goes in both directions.
Josh Anderson and Brendon Gallagher are not prolific creators of offense, but they certainly can battle. Mike Matheson is similar to Zach Werenski in that he’s a prolific generator of offense who isn’t otherwise good at protecting the slot. Kaiden Guhle has a lot of potential but wasn’t ready to make up that difference.
From a microstats perspective, Monahan did little to make a difference. He occupied the middle of the ice and passed to and from there (Passes from Center Lane, High Danger Assists). His Point Shot Setups/60 suggest he’s decent at giving the puck back to his defensemen but that kind of offense isn’t necessarily preferable to more dangerous kinds.
Still, with players like Werenski, Severson, Mateychuk and Jiricek, giving the puck to them could become a good thing.
Monahan didn’t have a significant effect in transition. He didn’t generate entries or exits proficiently but his efficiency was just close to league average. He retrieved the puck and some of those lead to exits but otherwise he wasn’t particularly fantastic.
As a result, Monahan was a poor generator of rush offense. Some of this, once again, comes down to his most common linemates being Josh Anderson and Brendon Gallagher, but we can say that Monahan isn’t capable of driving that sort of offense in isolation either.
In Winnipeg, Monahan’s role shifted a bit. Instead of being a center for a variety of checkers he became the middle-six pivot between quality wings. You can consider him a 2C if you’d like but I believe that’s only because he shared ice with Nikolaj Ehlers.
Adam Lowry lead the Winnipeg Jet’s fearsome matchup line and, for that reason, I don’t think it’s fair to categorize either line as the 2nd line. The Jets utilized a modern contender middle-six that is, perhaps, the better way to think of line construction for the future.
Similarly, the Connor-Scheifele-Vilardi line received the most favorable deployment with offensive zone starts. In their playoff series against Colorado they played power-on-power, still offensive zone start leaning, whereas the Monahan line played split zone starts but primarily against the Colorado middle six.
When deployed with those Ehlers and Toffoli, Monahan and the Jets won their minutes handily. They attacked the slot, though not the netfront to the same degree, and protected it well as well. The Jets were a rigid and structured team and that likely made up some of the difference but Pionk isn’t exactly a stalwart defender any longer.
Offensively, the Jets shot quite a lot from the left side of the ice. This is most likely a heatmap of Josh Morrissey and Nikolaj Ehlers driving offense but could also be Toffoli off-wing setups.
Monahan’s microstat profile looks significantly better from his time with Winnipeg. His general offense is significantly improved mostly by way of Cycle & Forecheck offense. He’s linking his passes into shots and assists at a far greater rate, transitioning better and contributing more to getting the puck out of the zone.
Despite being evenly balanced in terms of production, Monahan doesn’t necessarily create many chances off of his stick. Similarly, his zone entries aren’t necessarily linked with passing or chance creation.
Here, perhaps, Monahan is the beneficiary of quality linemates (Nikolaj Ehlers is a 5v5 superstar) and a defensive zone structure that allows him to contribute. Still, he contributed to the efforts and, though Winnipeg lost quite easily, gained increasing minutes in their series against Colorado.
The total result is a player who looks like this. He attacks the slot and he doesn’t protect it. He’s an average passer but a poor finisher (likely because his rebound attempts generate a high xG but he isn’t a Tkachuk/Pavelski/Kreider style netfront finisher).
On special teams, his presence increased slot and net-front chances on the powerplay and decreased them on the penalty kill. It’s hard to say a forward is responsible for PK net-front chances but if he can contribute the Blue Jackets should be happy.
EvolvingHockey’s GAR card suggests something similar but does less work to filter out his teammates. While on the ice, Monahan’s team got a good offensive results but poor defensive results. If xGAR results are more predictive, he’s likely to be worse next season.
Up to this point, the focus of this analysis has been 5v5 play. What the full pictures of his 23/24 performance give us, however, is a look into his special teams production.
In terms of his HockeyViz analytics, especially heatmaps, Sean Monahan improves his team on both aspects of Special Teams. The net-front and inner slot was attacked and protected adequately during his respective team responsibility.
Monahan was a target for the Winnipeg Jets primarily for his capacity to contribute to their powerplay. He can win faceoffs, which is important for establishing zone-time, and filled the bumper-position well.
While Nikolaj Ehlers is certainly a better player, he didn’t have a PP1 slot because of Mark Scheifele and Kyle Connor filling his most common positions. These specific positional considerations should be important for the Blue Jackets as well.
The Tape
Here are all of Monahan’s shifts from Game 1 of Winnipeg’s first game against the Colorado Avalanche. For a game that ultimately finished 7-6, it’s remarkable that Monahan was not on the ice for any 5v5 goals in either direction.
For the most part, Monahan’s tape confirms a lot of what the stats say. I’ve watched a few more games to make sure I’m not only getting a very specific idea of the player but I’ve also only got so much time.
Puck Plays
For the most part, Monahan moves the puck to the right spots at the right time but doesn’t necessarily do it in a way, either in surety of execution or through tremendous pressure, that adds a lot of value for his team. Most notable is his desire to quickly move pucks to his teammates in space.
Forechecking and Backchecking
Monahan isn’t a prolific skater but does keep his feet moving at the right time. He doesn’t break defenses in transition but is otherwise capable. Hes forechecks eagerly and pressures at the right time but also doesn’t create a significant advantage.
His skating hinders him from getting first touch on puck retrievals and doesn’t make him dynamic in any forechecking regard. He takes decent routes and isn’t afraid of putting in effort but doesn’t have the preternatural awareness or relentless motor to overcome the just-okay acceleration.
He’s diligent on the backcheck and works to lift opponents sticks. He’s not afraid of playing through contact but he’s not physical or imposing either.
Defense
Monahan is usually in the right spots defensively but his motor, skating and anticipation aren’t good enough to get stops at a particularly impactful rate. At times, he overcommits to the wall and gets beat to the middle of the ice.
Slot Timing
While in the offensive zone, Monahan occupies the center of the ice and uses his timing to get to the slot and find rebounds and loose pucks. He doesn’t orchestrate sophisticated passing plays but his movement timing is pretty good.
Special Teams
Sean Monahan produced many of his points on the powerplay. In fact, one of the reasons he was targeted by the Winnipeg Jets was specifically his role fit in the bumper position on the powerplay.
This isn’t a sexy or highly productive role but it works to Monahan’s strengths. He times his movement through the middle of the ice well and can make puck decisions quickly.
When in high pressure areas you don’t necessarily need to be precise to do the job,though role- experts like Brayden Point, Lucas Raymond and Sam Reinhart certainly are, you just have to get the puck out of danger.
In the above clips you can see his middle timing and movement as well as a nifty playmaking idea on Montreal’s first goal.
Film Wrap
In summation, Monahan doesn’t enhance the pace of play through puck-moving or skating. He’s competent and won’t drag down talented offensive players but he’s also not necessarily working to add value to their efforts either.
He does his job and doesn’t try to make an impact outside of his role. For a team filled with talented rookies, that’s a good thing. Young players have a tendency to try to do too much so having a linemate who keeps it simple will also be keeping it about them.
His best traits are timing movements into the slot area and making quick decisions on the puck, usually in moving it to his teammates. He’s diligent defensively but doesn’t dictate play or outwork his lack of play control.
CBJ Role Fit
Sean Monahan profiles firmly as a middle-six center best used between good offensive players. This would fit with the Blue Jackets recent history of having a defacto 1C who wouldn’t actually be considered that on a competitive team.
The good part is that Monahan has the type of skillset that is “able to be carried” by strong offensive players rather than being an anchor. Judging by Don Waddell’s media availability, that’s exactly the plan. Waddell plans to reunite him with Johnny Gaudreau, allow Adam Fantilli to grow on the second line and have Sillinger and Jenner duke it out for center rights on the third line.
The CBJ roster is improved by adding Sean Monahan to the lineup. He’s got the skill to allow Gaudreau to play his game and brings a little more dimension (especially in in-zone sequences) than Boone Jenner.
Theoretically, this could mean Kirill Marchenko gets to play shooter opposite Gaudreau, which was a very fruitful partnership in 2022-23. If that line doesn’t provide the desired pace perhaps there’s another winger in the works or maybe Yegor Chinakhov can find some top-line duty opposite Gaudreau.
The addition of Monahan will also have down-the-lineup benefits as it means the Blue Jackets can spread veterancy throughout the middle-six and not rely on full lines of very young players. While there will still likely be a “young-line” somewhere, provided no further additions, they will all be much better positioned for success.
I would caution anyone who believes this means that the Johnny Gaudreau of old is back. I believe the pace of the NHL has dramatically increased since 2018-19 and Monahan doesn’t have the physical skills or ultra-intelligence to overcome his skating.
Though Gaudreau was quite good in 2018-19 (Elias Lindholm and Monahan rotating center and wing responsibilities) it was with Matthew Tkachuk in 20-21 that Gaudreau authored a superstar season.
If Kirill Marchenko can replicate Lindholm’s impact as a right-handed slot shooter with other utility, and both Gaudreau and Monahan can wind back the clock 6 years, it could be a very good top-line.
Special Teams
Monahan will also bring valuable veterancy to the special teams. This is especially important for roster construction purposes as it gives flexibility with Sean Kuraly and Boone Jenner whose deals both expire in the next two offseasons.
In terms of powerplay contributions, the fit doesn’t work quite as well as Montreal or Winnipeg. The Blue Jackets certainly need quality bumper play but their powerplay personnel have key differences.
Monahan works as a left-shot bumper on a left-half wall driven powerplay with the primary half-wall quarterback and net-front playmaker both being right-handed. For Montreal this was Nick Suzuki and Cole Caufield, for Winnipeg it was Mark Scheifele and Gabe Vilardi.
Other teams who are exemplary users of the bumper feature a similar off-handed structure (Kucherov and Paul vs Point, Barkov and Tkachuk vs Reinhart, Kane and Larkin vs Raymond). That isn’t to say it’s the only way to play and handedness is the most important factor here but it is worth mentioning that the Blue Jackets’ best net-front players and best net-front prospects are left-handed (Jenner, Voronkov, Fantilli, Kent Johnson, Cayden Lindstrom).
Ottawa is also a pre-eminent netfront playmaking powerplay with opposite-handed net-front and bumper. In PP1 it’s Brady Tkachuk and Shane Pinto, in PP2 it’s Drake Batherson and Dominik Kubalik. Their half-wall players aren’t aligned with their net-front (Giroux-Tkachuk or Stutzle-Batherson) in the way that the aforementioned teams are.
Kirill Marchenko floated between the roles and could be the net-front answer to Monahan’s bumper. Both he and Gavin Brindley do project to be good right-handed bumper shooters who are already aligned with potential net-front PP options.
For this reason, it’s likely that Winnipeg was going to extract more value out of a bigger contract than Columbus will. Further changes to the roster, or high quality powerplay coaching, can still result in Monahan maintaining his previous level of powerplay production but, at this point, it’s a risk.
Contract Considerations
Monahan, as a player for 2024-25, is a good fit for the Columbus Blue Jackets. He’ll bump some players into appropriate positions while adding some new veterancy and flexibility in case Waddell continues to purge the locker room.
Historical Comparables
His deal, however, is a bit less clean. EvolvingHockey’s contract projection, which should at least give us an idea historical market value, put him in line for a 3 year x $5.276 million deal. The Blue Jackets paid 5 years x $5.5 million. Typically, increased term results in a reduction of AAV but in this case both were increased relative to the projection.
In terms of comparables, I find it hard to see how Monahan stacks up favorably.
Ryan O’Reilly was just last season, is slightly older, has more 1C bona-fides and a better “B” game but is paid $1 million AAV less with 1 fewer year commitment.
JT Compher played the placeholder 2C role in Colorado, and produced there, but has the legitimate defensive qualities that make him easy to slot into a middle six defensive role through the term. He was younger at contract signing and was paid less as well.
Monahan compares favorably with Mikael Granlund whose underlying impacts are otherwise atrocious. As much as I wouldn’t consider Monahan a defensive stalwart, he’s had seasons of decent impacts and should be able to adapt to a low-event game.
By both term and dollar amount, it looks like an overpay. It feels like the Blue Jackets were competing for his services with the Winnipeg Jets and felt the need to offer a bigger contract.
Being a bad team, in the middle of Ohio, who has fired three coaches and a GM in slightly more than a calendar year isn’t exactly an attractive draw for players with other options. I wouldn’t say Monahan’s deal was a major unforced error but it’s certainly laden with risk.
Perhaps the rising cap is going to quickly wreak havoc on contract projection models (they use Cap Hit %, so it shouldn’t be anything crazy but there’s larger market shift potential) and the Blue Jackets made a minor overpayment.
Market Context
As much as I would have liked to sign Matt Duchene, who I believe to be a better player with a better role and term fit, he’s much more inclined to stay in a good situation on a good team in Dallas.
Don Waddell professed to not preferring to use Free Agency as a primary method to improve the roster so as much as Monahan felt like a bigger signing than that sentiment indicated it’s still a far cry from the deals handed to Chandler Stephenson and Elias Lindholm.
Though those two players have more “boom potential” they are also paid massive contracts with the potential for catastrophic failure as well. In avoiding those deals, Don Waddell comes out ahead while serving the goals of the club.
The other deals signed on the day, or since then, are Shane Pinto as an RFA, Alex Wennberg, Yakov Trenin and Adam Henrique. Each of those players came on more palatable term and AAV and project more simply to middle-six roles but Monahan comes with the highest potential to be a 1C (or at least rekindle some chemsitry with Johnny Gaudreau) where the others are more difficult to envision in that role.
Shane Pinto would have been a fantastic player though obviously would have cost assets to acquire and would have been perhaps too similar to players already on the roster (young and unproven).
The Blue Jackets got Sean Monahan because they paid him good money but also because they gave him an NMC for the first 3 years. He wanted to come to Columbus to raise his young family and from that perspective, Columbus is a great place to do it. There’s an angle for him to hold onto the 1C spot and, if soon displaced by Adam Fantilli, to do his job reliably and allow younger more talented wings to shine.
Wrap Up
Monahan works out for the Blue Jackets if he can continue equivalent Winnipeg 5v5 performance (swapping Gaudreau for Ehlers and Marchenko for Toffoli) or if he plays lower in the lineup and brings good performance in a specialized special teams role.
He also works, from a roster management perspective, if he enables the Blue Jackets to continue to reorganize the roster to better fit the long-term prospects.
Boone Jenner and Sean Kuraly have expiring deals and now the Blue Jackets, at the very least, have a potential for stability as Adam Fantilli, Cayden Lindstrom and the rest of the young Blue Jackets make their way into the NHL.
Sean Monahan also brings faceoff winning and the bumper role to the powerplay which could go either direction. If it moves Kirill Marchenko to the net-front, and he thrives, it’s a good move.
Shifting Marchenko there could allow him to develop confidence creating from that position which could have downstream positive effects on his 5v5 play as well. If Marchenko is going to hit his ceiling, he’s going to have to be a good net-front player.
Monahan doesn’t work if he doesn’t adapt well to power-on-power minutes with Gaudreau or his aging curve hits hard as a result of the hip injuries. If he becomes unplayable and LTIR’d as a result of injury that sucks for the Blue Jackets but it isn’t as disastrous as his footspeed disappearing earlier than expected.
He also doesn’t work if he doesn’t adapt well to the Blue Jackets’ powerplay. That’s less of an issue but could mean that they are paying for a production and role-fit mismatch and therefore losing cap efficiency.
The ultimate risk is Sean Monahan taking valuable development ice-time away from center prospects Adam Fantilli, Cole Sillinger or Cayden Lindstrom. All three project to be in the NHL and earning top nine icetime during Monahan’s contract. If the Blue Jackets are comfortable shifting him to wing or playing on the 4th line, there’s room to play with.
If things go poorly, the Blue Jackets have a dead-weight cap-hit as Fantilli is entering his prime and may have to spend to move off of it or otherwise overcome it elsewhere (hoping that Gaudreau and Severson aren’t also in that situation).
Trade Laine at 50 % retention for W. Karlsson (moving Monahan to RW) and let the Oilers dump B. Kulak's salary and I think Columbus has got a pretty good roster even with this trade.