The title alone will surely bring some level of distaste for Chris Drury’s “highlight” of the 2023 offseason. But to be fair in our 2024 Blake Wheeler report card, we have to again take a step back and look at the bigger picture. Wheeler, signed to be a third line player, played most of the season miscast in the top-six. Yet in 54 games, he still put up a respectable 9-12-21 before a leg injury cost him the rest of the season, and perhaps the rest of his career.
Wheeler was slated to be on a tertiary scoring line with Will Cuylle and Vincent Trocheck to start the season. It was clear from the start the Wheeler was at least one step too slow for how the Rangers wanted to play, but both Cuylle and Trocheck were able to carry the weight while Wheeler held his own. He wasn’t expected to carry a line, he was simply expected to provide some extra depth scoring.
Unfortunately, the Filip Chytil injury threw everything into flux. Then Kaapo Kakko was removed from the top line, as he simply wasn’t clicking with Mika Zibanejad and Chris Kreider, despite solid possession numbers. Those possession numbers looked fine on the surface, but there was an extreme lack of offensive driving ability, thus Wheeler was subbed in. The line was objectively worse on the whole, but they did wind up generating a bit more offense at the expense of stellar defense.
Wheeler was never going to be a three zone, two way player at this stage in his career. He was signed as a bargain bin free agent looking for one last kick at the can. Had the Rangers kept Wheeler on the third line, there’s a solid chance we are having a different conversation. That’s just not how the season played out, and Wheeler was one of many miscast throughout the season.
It’s probably unfair to judge Wheeler based on his nearly full season as the Rangers 1RW, since he was never meant to play that role. Still, it’s what he played, and now we have to be a bit more subjective than we’d like in assigning a “grade” for his season.
Wheeler did not play in the postseason, and it’s fair to say he would have been outmatched against teams that played much faster like Carolina and Florida. Still, there probably wouldn’t have been much of a net difference between him and Jack Roslovic in the same role.
Wheeler did everything he could. For $800k, his production was fine for the salary. It was a low risk, high reward contract that simply didn’t work out. He was respectable at best.
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