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2023-24 Tampa Bay Lightning Player Reviews: Luke Glendening

Dec 30, 2023; Tampa, Florida, USA; Tampa Bay Lightning center Luke Glendening (11) skates with the puck as New York Rangers defenseman K'Andre Miller (79) defends during the third period at Amalie Arena. Mandatory Credit: Kim Klement Neitzel-USA TODAY Sports

We’re winding down the player reviews, which is nice since the team is getting ready to install the ice at Amalie Arena for next season. Luke Glendening joined the team last season and did what they asked him to do, and did it at a reasonable cost.

The Basics:

Name: Luke Glendening

Position: Center

Counting Stats: 81 Games, 10 Goals, 1 Assists, 11:37 TOI

Extra Stats (5v5): 41.24 CF%, 38.61 SF%, 40.0 GF%, 36.99 xGF%, 39.29 HDCF%, .930 On-ice Save Percentage, 5.7 iXG

2023-24 Contract: First year of a 2-year contract that had an AAV of $800,000

Contract Status: Second year of a 2-year contract that is worth $1.60 million total. He will be an unrestricted free agent at the end of the season.

The Charts:

The Review:

Before we get too far, let’s congratulate Luke Glendening on winning the 2023-24 Cy Young Award for the Tampa Bay Lightning. One of the unofficial awards of the NHL season, the Cy Young recognizes the player that had the biggest dependency between goals and assists over the course of the year. With a record of 10-1, the veteran Glendening we voted last year’s winner.

He also shattered the Lightning record for most points by a skater that had just one assist. The previous record was held by Ben Clymer who had 5 goals and 1 assist in the 2000-01 season. Glendening’s lone assist came on Darren Raddysh’s goal against Minnesota, and it came as the two players kind of swapped positions.

It was a nice keep at the point from Glendening, who threw it on net for Raddysh, camped down low to tip it home. Also, credit to Tanner Jeannot for throwing the big hit in the corner that started the play.

The signing of Glendening last summer continued Julien BriseBois’ trend of finding veteran forwards to fill in on the fourth line at a reasonable cost – Pierre-Edouard Bellemare, Corey Perry, Pat Maroon, etc. In that sense, he did exactly what Mr. BriseBois wanted him to do, play a little defense, eat up minutes on the ice and kill some penalties. Any offense he provided was a bonus. It’s actually kind of amazing he scored 10 goals when you take a gander at his season-long stats.

Just look at that offensive isolated impact:

It’s so Lightning blue! Now, of course blue isn’t great on these visualizations. On offense, the more red the better. Even for fourth lines it would be better to see a little more action on the ice. If a player is going to have that little of an impact on offense on a consistent basis, the hope is that he would be staunch in his own zone.

Glendening was… well, just okay, to be honest. He wasn’t the worst defensive player on the ice for the Bolts, but he wasn’t the best either. For most of his underlying numbers (shots against, high-danger chances against, etc.) he ranked in the middle of the pack. For a center that is on the ice to lock down his opponents, that’s not ideal.

Digging in a little deeper, his numbers were much better in the second half of the season than the first, so it seems once he adapted to the Lightning’s system things improved:

Stats (5v5)October 10-December 31January 1 – April 17
Games Played3843
Shots Against per 6031.724.86
xGA per 602.842.07
High-Danger Chances Against per 6011.438.13
GA per 602.251.69
Stats via Natural Stat Trick

That second column was much more along the lines of what the Lightning were hoping for from the 35-year-old. Despite suffering a shoulder injury in the penultimate regular season, Glendening appeared in all five post season games and had a 1.08 XGA/60, the third best number on the team. In 35 minutes of 5v5 time he was on the ice for just one goal against.

Next season he’ll be expected to do what he did over the second half of the season, and Lightning forwards have a long history of performing better in their second season with the team than in the first.

Previous Reviews:

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