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Article: Jake Middleton Has Been Minnesota's Unsung Hero This Season


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35 minutes ago, Citizen Strife said:

Middleton got a lot of shit for his contract.  He decided to laugh through missing top teeth.

This is extremely based but important to point out that the extension doesn't start until next season. 

To your point, that contract is intended to provide value in the first couple of seasons and gets worse once the cap is higher and the wild are past their contention window. 

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I'm not shocked that Middleton is getting heavy ice time against other team's best. His role was to be Faber's defensive partner and Faber is getting a top pairing role. It's only natural that Middleton is there too!

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Middleton is thriving in a new role under John Hynes. Take a look at his most common five-on-five teammates this season. Notice that most of Middleton’s minutes come with Minnesota’s top scoring line rather than the checking line:

So, I would say that Middleton's 5v5 minutes will mirror Faber's, Faber gets more PP time and equal PK time. It also makes sense that he's out against other team's best because they are out more of the time on the ice than the bottom 6. There's a lot of team's out there that do not roll 4 lines. 

Don't get me wrong, I like Midsy's role and I like pairing him with Faber. But I think the simpler explanation is what is happening, not that Heinzy unlocked some mysterious potential in him. He's always been a solid D pairing and played top minutes in San Jose to both Eriksson and Burns. Now he does the same with Faber.

What we also can see from this is that the Brodin-Spurgeon pairing is a 2nd unit. If Faber and Brodin are able to play 30 minute games, that's a great lockdown to have. 

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