By Tony Abbott -
In the financial world, a peculiar phenomenon sometimes happens with stocks. They'll dip for an extended period of time, then rebound in value, enticing people to think that the market is evening itself out. Maybe investors buy, thinking better days have already arrived. Then, surprise! The stock falls again, and a bunch of people with more money than me are unhappy.
It's called the Dead Cat Bounce. Like most things in the world of finance, it's a shockingly stupid concept. Throw a dead cat off a building. It's gonna hit the ground and bounce. It's not smart to put in adoption papers for the cat when it reaches the apex on its bounce because, well, it's dead. It feels silly to even break it down this much.
This isn't universal to every instance of a stock falling, sure, but it's a helpful idea. Don't fall for a bad bet just because it momentarily looks like it will work out.
That brings us, unfortunately, to Tuesday's Minnesota Wild news.
We'll say the good stuff about Zach Bogosian here because the rest of the analysis on his two-year, $2.5 million contract won't be so shining. It must be said that Bogosian has been a rare positive for Minnesota since the team acquired him on November 8. He has nine points in 43 games for the Wild, averaging 17-plus minutes per night. Carried mostly by his defensive value, Bogosian's play is worth the equivalent of 1.5 points in the standings, the third-best on the Wild.
He's been Minnesota's third-best defenseman this year, and it hasn't been particularly close. Here's how the Wild's defensemen rank in terms of Standings Points Above Replacement (SPAR) this season:
Brock Faber: 3.2 SPAR
Jonas Brodin: 2.6 SPAR
ZACH BOGOSIAN: 1.5 SPAR
Jared Spurgeon (out for season): 1.1 SPAR
Calen Addison (traded): 0.3 SPAR
Jake Middleton: 0.3 SPAR
Jon Merrill: 0.2 SPAR
Declan Chisholm: -0.4 SPAR
Alex Goligoski: -0.6 SPAR
Daemon Hunt: -0.9 SPAR
Dakota Mermis: -1.0 SPAR
Besides Faber, Brodin, and Bogosian, everyone who can play for the Wild has, at best, been a wash in terms of helping the team win. Most of them have been a drag on Minnesota's blueline. Their four worst defensemen have cost them nearly three standings points.
That's well-deserved, genuine praise for Bogosian. The Wild got real value on a seventh-round pick, and Bogosian performed well in an opportunity. If it ended at that, it'd be a fine story.
The problem is that the Wild are on the hook for Bogosian for two more years. No, it's not much money, and no, it doesn't come with trade restrictions. But Bill Guerin's front office once again made the mistake of buying high on an aging player for yet another multi-year contract.
It's a move that makes sense if we look at Bogosian's 43 games with Minnesota. It's a move that's downright baffling when viewed in a larger context. Looking at his career SPAR chart, you can see the first part of the Dead Cat Bounce.
Minnesota may have won their low-risk bet, but there was a reason the odds were against them to begin with. A rugged, 6-foot-2, right-shot defenseman carrying an $850K cap hit doesn't cost a seventh-round pick for no reason, after all. In the greater scope of his career, Bogosian stands out as being one of the NHL's worst defensemen.
Looking at every defenseman who's played in the NHL since the 2007-08 season, Bogosian is tied for the 25th-worst in the NHL with -4.3 SPAR. We're not even talking about one model disliking him, either. xStandings Points Above Replacement (xSPAR, an Evolving-Hockey metric heavily based on Emmanuel "MannyElk" Perry's WAR model) rates his career value as -4.6 xSPAR.
If there's a moral victory here, he at least moves out of the bottom-25 defensemen of the Analytics Era. Instead, xSPAR rates him as tied with Luke Schenn as the 33rd-worst defenseman.
It's difficult to compile so much negative value because once you dip near that territory, more often than not, you're finding your way out of the league. But Bogosian has had staying power, probably due to a combination of size and being considered a good teammate. Those are qualities you'd rather have in a player than not, but those alone aren't sufficient to issue a multi-year contract.
Especially not for the Wild, who are older than they've ever been and will soon be even older. Bogosian's extension gives Minnesota nine players over the age of 30 who are under contract next season, and that doesn't count a possible return for pending quadragenarian Marc-Andre Fleury. In 2025-26, Bogosian will be one of seven players in their 30s on the Wild's books.
It's not universally bad to be in your 30s, of course. Spurgeon and Brodin are absolutely players you'd rather have than not, even if they're getting up there in years. Mats Zuccarello's five-year contract with Minnesota kicked in at age-32, and he's been productive under that. However, it remains to be seen if that will hold true for the deal that kicks in next season.
But in those cases, those were top-line or top-pairing players who still carried value even when their peak years were behind them. However, the Wild are getting burned on deals for players who weren't nearly so good at their peaks. Once a non-impact player like Merrill, Marcus Johansson, or Freddy Gaudreau starts to decline, it can get ugly fast.
Merrill seems like the most apt comparison to Bogosian in terms of style and career path with the Wild. A stay-at-home defenseman, Merrill impressed the Wild in 2021-22 when he put up four goals and 20 points, blazing his way to a 1.7 SPAR season. Guerin rewarded his performance on a one-year, $900K contract with job security in the form of a three-year deal with a $1.1 million cap hit.
Since then, Merrill has fallen out of favor somewhat with two seasons of essentially replacement-level (0.4 SPAR) hockey over 118 games. While it's probably unfair to say that a $1.1 million cap hit is hamstringing the team, the Wild can probably find a better, cheaper option for their sixth or seventh defenseman. Maybe it's not the end of the world, but it's hardly the most efficient use of Minnesota's resources.
Merrill's low-risk, low-cost deal turned a bit sour. Still, he was a much better bet at the time of his extension than Bogosian is right now. Merrill's career SPAR is 5.4, making him a positive contributor to his teams over his career. Merrill was also significantly younger at the time of his extension. His current deal covers his age-30 to 32 seasons.
Bogosian's contract will take him through his age-35 season. This is coming after a career where he's already been one of the worst players in the league. The Wild signed onto locking in an older, worse, and more expensive version of Merrill for the next two seasons.
If this half-season blip in Bogosian's 830-game career of below-replacement play doesn't translate to success into his mid-30s, Guerin will have adopted the Dead Cat on its last way up.
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