After all of the hullabaloo following the draft and free agency a quietly important deadline passed on Friday. For restricted free agents with arbitration rights, Friday was the deadline to file for a hearing and across the league 14 players took action. Some of the bigger names were Carolina’s Martin Necas and Buffalo’s Ukko-Pekka Luukkonen, but there was also a name familiar to Lightning fans – J.J. Moser.
That’s right, the newest Bolt is kicking off his tenure with the team with an arbitrator-led meeting about how much money he should make next season. Don’t worry, this isn’t a huge deal, and, honestly, there isn’t enough history between the two parties for their to be much contention in the process. The Lightning also have a pretty strong history of settling their arbitration cases prior to the hearing. In the next few days, the hearing will be scheduled and that will give the two sides a deadline to get things worked out, but don’t expect too much to leak in regards to what either side is offering.
Janis Jerome (J.J.) Moser is a 24-year-old defenseman that was a key part of the Mikhail Sergachev trade to Utah that the Lightning made during the draft. The left-shot blueliner has played in 205 games in the NHL and recorded 16 goals while adding 56 assists to his resume. Last season he led the Coyotes in 5v5 ice time with 1,324 minutes on the ice.
It’s always hard to judge a player who is garnering a lot of ice time on a rebuilding team. By the very nature of a rebuild, the talent surrounding him isn’t necessarily the best and that could lead to some deceptive stats. So, don’t be too concerned by the following player card from the folks at Evolving Hockey:
That card covers Moser’s entire three-year career with the Coyotes and that giant “3” in the defense box isn’t exactly inspiring. However, again, let us please stress that focusing on one number, be it defensive rankings, plus/minus, or points scored doesn’t tell the entire story of a player and the role they could fill for a new team.
The breakdown by Hockey Viz shows a little more positive spin to his game as he does an exceptional job of forcing shots to less dangerous areas when he’s on the ice last season.
Moser is going to sign a contract with the Tampa Bay Lightning some time this summer and will be in the starting line-up on opening night in Carolina. Make no mistake about that. With the way the roster looks right now, he’ll be lining up on the left side of the third pairing behind Victor Hedman and Ryan McDonagh and see some time on the penalty kill. After averaging over 20 minutes a night with the Coyotes, he’s probably going to be closer to the 15-17 minute mark with the Lightning if everything goes to plan.
At 6’1″, 173-pounds, Moser isn’t the most intimidating defenseman on the team, and while he’s not the shortest on the roster (McDonagh and Darren Raddysh are also listed at 6’1″) he would be the slightest. While he doesn’t shy away from physical contact, he had 85 hits last season, he relies more on skating and positioning to make his plays.
One of the biggest attributes he will bring to the Lightning will be his aggressiveness on entry defense. The Lightning, at times, do allow teams to carry the puck into the zone a little too easy. Is it a structure thing? A little, but even with their system a little pressure from time to time can disrupt plays from even developing. Moser can help with that.
The chart shows that he was well above average in denying entries into the zone while opponents chose not to try and carry the puck into the zone against him. Forcing the other team to shoot the puck in from the neutral zone should, in theory, give Moser’s teammates a chance to recover the puck and successfully exit the zone with it. Quicker exits lead to more offense and less time wasting energy in their own zone chasing the puck, which is something the Lightning could use next season.
It also leads to fewer penalties in the defensive zone. One stat that stood out was that Moser was only whistled for 15 minor penalties in his 1,300+ minutes of 5v5 ice time. Only two Lightning defensemen posted a rate lower than his 0.72 PIM/60 last season, Raddysh and Nick Perbix.
According to NHL Edge stats, Moser spent 41.8% of his 5v5 ice time in the defensive zone. On a team that is struggling, chasing the puck around in your own zone can often lead to a lot of holding, slashing, hooking type of penalties, and the fact that Moser was able to avoid a lot of those is a good sign that he’s not getting caught out of position a lot in his own zone.
He did pick up just one minor penalty last season and ironically, it was against the Lightning. On January 25th he went gloves off in a brief bout with Mikey Eyssimont:
Hockey Fights has him listed with just three fights over his career, so don’t expect him to be pummeling opponents on a nightly basis, it’s just not in his Swiss nature.
Speaking of his Swiss background it is interesting to note that while never being heralded as a top prospect, he has found himself moving up into important roles fairly quickly in his career. He made his debut with Biel HC in the National League as a 17-year-old and was their captain by age 20. He’s also played on Switzerland’s last three World Championship teams.
After being drafted in the 2021 NHL draft with the 60th pick by Arizona (the same year they took Emil Lilleberg with the 107th pick) Moser spent all of 18 games in the AHL with the Tucson Roadrunners before earning his first call-up to the Coyotes as a 21-year-old. He never gave them a reason to send him back down.
From all accounts, there isn’t much that stands out about his game. He’s not going to make a ton of flashy plays or score a lot of highlight-reel goals. What he will bring to the Lightning is a steady game and solid play at 5v5. That’s the main area of focus for Tampa Bay this offseason and his addition should help the Bolts keep the puck out of the net.
The big question that is left to be answered will be how much it’s going to cost the Bolts for his services. Evolving Hockey projects his next contract to be in the 3-year, $3.3 million range. As of today, Cap Friendly projects the Lightning with $5.7 million in cap space with 19 players under contract. Signing Moser to a deal in that range would leave them a few million dollars to round things out on the roster with either another low-cost free agent or internal promotions.
If Julien BriseBois is dreaming bigger, the fact that Moser elected an arbitration hearing does trigger a second buyout period for the Lightning. The period would last for 48 hours and start three days after they either come to a settlement with Moser or he’s awarded a deal by the arbitrator. There is a kicker to this buyout period and it’s that the player has to have been on the team’s reserve list at the most recent trade deadline and, this is the big one, have a cap hit of at least $4,000,000. For the Bolts, everyone over that threshold is signed long-term and wouldn’t make sense to buy out.
If Mr. BriseBois isn’t done taking big swings at the roster (looking at you second line), any future moves will likely come via a trade instead of a buyout.
