Hey, July is almost over.That means only one more calendar month without live hockey to talk about. That’s awesome! It’s also about the time we’ll finish up talking about last season at the rate we’re going. None the less we move on. Today we talk about Conor Sheary. No matter how you look at it, it wasn’t a pretty season for the veteran.
The Basics
Name: Conor Sheary
Position: Forward
Counting Stats: 57 Games, 4 Goals, 11 Assists, 11:06 TOI
Extra Stats (5v5): 49.48 CF%, 48.15 SF%, 46.67 GF%, 46.62 xGF%, 47.98 HDCF%, .905 On-ice Save Percentage, 4.93 iXG
2023-24 Contract: First year of a 3-year, $6 million
Contract Status: Second year of a 3-year deal with a $2.0 million cap hit.
The Charts
The Review
There is no other way to say this. Conor Sheary had a terrible first season with the Tampa Bay Lightning. Whether it was due to injuries, inconsistent production, or a lack of a defined role on the team, Sheary put up the worst numbers of his nine-year career. For the first time in his career, Evolving Hockey had him rated as a below-replacement player, calculating his SPAR at -0.2 indicating that he hurt the team more than he helped them when he was on the ice.
As we mentioned in a February post about his play, even when he did the right thing, things went wrong for him. There was no better example to that than this play against the Senators.
That’s not what Sheary, the Lightning, or the fans were expected when he signed, at the time, the longest free-agent deal under Julien BriseBois’ tenure. The good news is that there are two years left on his deal for Sheary to turn things around.
When he was signed last summer, his versatility was considered an asset as he had experience playing with top line talent such as Alex Ovechkin and Sidney Crosby, but he also had the determination to be a forechecking third-liner. However, during last season, that lack of a designated role left him as a nomad, bouncing up and down the lines before settling on the bottom-six.
While he was ineffective on the ice, the biggest issue was probably his ability to stay on it. Early in the season, just as it seemed like he was getting in the rhythm of the offense he blocked a shot with his hand and missed a month of hockey. He would return to the line-up in mid-December and play in seven games before rupturing a tendon in his finger in a game against the Rangers.
Sheary stayed in the line-up following the injury but continued to struggled to make an impact. Here personal numbers didn’t change much on the ice as he posted an 0.48 iXG/60 in 20 games prior to December 30th and a 0.53 iXG/60 in the 37 games following the injury. His shot rates remained about the same, in fact went up slightly as he averaged 8.44 shot attempts in 2024 as opposed to 8.93 iCF/60 in the 2023 portion of the season.
As you can see from the All Three Zones player card above, Sheary posted below replacement-level numbers in a lot of the micro-stat categories, which is a wild departure from his previous season with the Washington Capitals.
Hopefully, what we saw in the 2023-24 season was an aberration and Sheary will bounce back next season. Could he bounce back to the point he’s a viable candidate for the open second-line spot? Unlikely, but if the 32-year-old stays healthy and gets back to even close to what he has done in his career, he could have an impact in a middle-six role.
Despite numerous buyout, waiver, and trade conversations taking up an alarming amount of data on the internet, Sheary is still on the roster as the calendar turns to August. Unless Mr. BriseBois has something else in his pocket, there is a very good chance that training camp will open with Sheary among the 13 forwards penciled into a starting role. If nothing else, there should be plenty of motivation on his behalf to show his teammates and the Lightning fans that he is better than the player we saw last season.
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