Meet the Newest St. Louis Blues: Radek Faksa Scouting Report | 7
today I’m going to be breaking down the newest acquisition of the St Louis Blues radic faxa from the Dallas Stars so this was the first of two trades that the blues made this offseason at least so far in h week one of free agency and um it is probably uh perhaps the least exciting of the three um but it was chronologically the first so um we’ll be going over the other two very soon um but radic faxa is uh acquired from the Dallas Stars for future considerations there seems to be a theme with the Blue’s newest moves but regardless faxa is 30 years old uh and measures in at 6 foot three he is 220 pounds so a very large uh player um good size which allows him to play center um especially as he is pretty solid on the face off um but can also play Winger um he’s a fourth liner so um that’s partially why it’s um perhaps maybe not the most exciting move but still will play valuable time on the fourth line um this season he’ll have a $3.25 million cap hit uh and this coming off season he will become a UFA so this is the last year of his deal this is essentially a rental for a fourth liner that we only had to give up future considerations for um so I suppose the return for Dallas remains to be seen but this does Shore up our uh bottom six and specifically fourth line Center depth which was pretty lackluster last year I think we can all agree on that faxa was a former first round pick uh he was selected 13th overall in 2012 by Dallas so he does have that high draft pedigree although argu you could say that he’s never quite lived up to it um his best season probably came in 2019 2020 um or excuse me it probably came before the the 2019 Seasons um probably you would say his best season was in 20178 he played 79 games put up 17 goals and 16 assists for 33 points um that was his highest goal scoring Mark by in his career by far um and he really has only been a depth uh player for most of his career um last season or I I’ll recap the last five years of of play so in uh 2020 2021 uh he put up 20 points uh with a minus six and in that year’s playoffs he put up eight points in 19 games um the next season he uh put up uh 14 points in 55 games at a minus 15 Mark so perhaps not as exciting um and the Stars didn’t make the playoffs um in 2020 and 2021 um then in 2021-22 put up 19 points five goals 14 assists in 77 gam so basically a full season’s work a minus 20 Mark that was probably the worst season of this stretch so far um also added two points in seven playoff games not very exciting um going from there ites do seem like he sort of tuned up his game a little bit um because The Following season in 2022 23 which is a season we’re going to hone in a lot on this episode really the last two seasons um in 2022 23 he put up 20 points 11 goals nine assists with a plus minus of nine in 81 games so basically the full season again um so this is significant because it’s the first time his plus minus was positive um and also scored 11 goals which was almost double the His Highest total before then and tied His Highest in 201920 um additionally in that year’s playoffs put up three points in 19 games so admittedly not very exciting in the playoffs and that is a theme that will continue with with him um in last season put up 19 points just one shy of the year of the mark he put up the year before um but played 74 games so in seven less games put up basically the same statline but with goals and assist reverse with seven goals 12 assists and a plus minus of zero so um fax has played a lot and uh a lot of depth minutes um which are often very tough shifts especially for stats and um there’s a reason players are on third and fourth lines also um never really been the most exciting goal scorer or Point taler um but we do see that beginning in that 2022 23 season we really see a shift towards his defensive game so coming out as a prospect he was kind of promised as this potentially good two-way forward um and that really never came to be and I I think finally um at least looking at his stat sheet and you know watching him play against the blues it does feel like he’s really put more effort into making uh better contributions defensively um so building off of that actually according to Patrick bacon and topown hockey mod model um he put a. 29 DW war in 2022 23 which is their statistic for like defense of War which is a version of a baseball statistic war meaning winds above replacement so this is essentially um a positive value in the amount of defensive ability he added to team play um so that Mark of 0. 29 in 2022 23 and that’s because the data for last season isn’t out yet so the most recent data we have for the 2022 23 season his Mark of 0. 29d War puts him 30th among all forwards in the NHL 30th might not be top 10 numbers um but still that is u a very very high Mark um for a fourth liner that’s something that I am just uh very impressed by um so as I’ve been saying this is a defensive guy um won’t really ever light it up on the stat sheet but is interesting um speaking of which in 20178 I’ll just say the the latter year of of the season to make things uh more clear because that’s when awards are voted on so in 2018 2019 2021 and 2023 uh faxa received selki votes uh 2018 he uh finished seventh in the voting which was by far as high as Mark the rest were 24 21 and 19 but still receive selky votes um and even down ballot in in one season close to um so again a very good defensive forward um who should has good size and the other thing about him that makes him a promising Prospect to play center um he has a pretty good Faceoff win right so um looking at money pucks metrics at Five On Five hockey which is most of the time he plays and and it’s when he’ll be his most valuable he didn’t play any minutes on uh the uh power play last year for Dallas and I expect he probably won’t play on either special teams unit maybe a second penalty Kill Center um could take over that Kevin Hayes role um which I think is significant here which we’ll get to in a moment um so at five on five he had a 56.3 Faceoff win rate last season is very good anything over 50% is pretty solid and 56.3% is very good um additionally for another metric at 5 on Five hockey according to money Puck he had 20 takeaways uh to only four defensive Zone giveaways so just takes care of the puck for the most part at five on five um very sound in his game that way um the metrics aren’t as good on special teams which is why I expect he will probably won’t play a ton of special teams minutes um but uh that remains to be seen in that is a decision that the coaching staff will make um additionally a lot of his other metrics are very good on money Puck but I won’t go into all of them um there’s quite a few and and they’re very hard to explain um but the the last one that I will go into is that not only was he able to put up these solid defensive numbers uh the usage that Dallas had faxa um in was very detrimental and difficult for him he had the second highest percent of shifts start started on the fly so this is uh plays that are counted as like still developing or the the situation isn’t set you know it isn’t like okay I can go in I can get to this position and I know what I need to do it’s very much like read and react to what’s happening on the ice and just try and not be a negative essentially um and he had the second highest percentage on the entire Stars team last year and still put up all of these very promising defensive metrics so faxa probably won’t offer much offensively but he’ll play a very strong defensive game on the fourth line hopefully um and so I think there is a lot to like on this deal additionally this is very important to consider when given the context of the Kevin Hayes trade that went down during the draft um so I’m sure we’re all aware Kevin Hayes traded to the Pittsburgh Penguins that he was a um special teams player and uh depth Center in er um I should say faxa can also play left wi um so this is essentially uh what I see as the replacement to the Kevin Hayes deal but with a more of a realization that he probably shouldn’t be playing middle six minutes like Kevin Hayes was last year um so a lot more promising of a Kevin Hayes than Kevin Hayes was honestly because offensively um Hayes was just borderline ATT ious um I know Blues fans feel maybe mixed about his play but uh he really didn’t create much and faxa probably won’t either um but defensively he is an upgrade and then some to what Hayes gave us um the only thing about this is that it his cap hit is still a full cap hit Dallas is not retaining any of his salary and is essentially the same to what Kevin haes is making um baxa’s cap hit as I said is 3.25 million against the cap that is pretty high for a defensive depth uh Center um but it isn’t anything that should hamstring the team or will limit their upside in anyway um so that I do get a little bit of pause with the deal he’s on but as I said he’s going to be a UFA after this year versus Kevin Hayes has two more years remaining on his deal that now Pittsburgh is covering the entirety of um so this is essentially a lot safer of a play with Kevin Hayes offers a lot defensively probably not much offensively probably not much in the playoffs you know in the scenario that the blues make it to the playoffs too his his track record is pretty poor pretty poor uh in the playoffs but as a fourth line Center um or Winger wherever they need him should take a valuable minutes and should play his role um better than his successor um but let us know what you think in the comments we’ll be responding to uh anything that uh any questions you guys may have um also check us out on all our socials Twitter Instagram give us a a like And subscribe wherever you get your podcast on YouTube give us a five star rating we appreciate it and we will have more content for you very soon uh coming out in the next couple days about the other newest Acquisitions of the St Louis Blues uh but for now and until then let’s go Blues
After an exciting first week of NHL free agency, the Blues made a couple moves on the margins. Their first acquisition was Radek Faksa from the Dallas Stars. This video will detail Faksa as a player and go in-depth on his career so far and how he will fit in as the newest St. Louis Blue.
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