Fredrik Claesson has been a steal so far

The 25-year-old lefty was signed for dirt cheap this summer and he’s quietly having a phenomenal season.

It was a low-key signing, one that didn’t generate much buzz among the masses. On July 1, the first day of free agency in the NHL, the Rangers signed Fredrik Claesson to a one-year, $700,000 deal. Many — myself included — assumed he’d be the seventh defenseman/buried in the AHL. But through the first quarter of the season, Claesson has been a pleasant surprise on a team full of them.

Claesson’s only registered one point, a piss-missile — that’s what we’re going with for slap-shot goals this season, by the way — against the Islanders last Wednesday, but his impact goes far beyond counting totals. Simply put, team’s don’t generate anything when he’s on the ice. He’s sporting a CA/60 of 55.57, second-best among Rangers’ defensemen (his partner, Kevin Shattenkirk, has the best on the team at 55.52), per Corsica Hockey. The team defends almost all areas — except for a blip in the slot — significantly better when Claesson is on the ice, per HockeyViz.com:

The purple, folks, is good and it gets even better when Claesson is on the ice with Shattenkirk:

This isn’t a new trend, either. Claesson defended well last year with the Senators, too. His CA/60 was 56.94, best among Senators’ defensemen who played at least 300 minutes, per Corsica Hockey. This was mainly attributed to Claesson being paired with Erik Karlsson, but this year Claesson has duplicated those results with the Rangers.

Claesson, a fifth-round pick of the Senators in 2011, always had the defensive ability; his Hockey’s Future page lauded his potential two-way game:

That’s pretty spot on for what we’ve seen so far, right? This is Claesson’s fourth year in the NHL and his highest point total is 11; obviously his offensive game never took off, but we shouldn’t have been expecting offensively from him. I’ve seen a few people refer to him as Anton Stralman 2.0, and while I think that’s true to some extent, Stralman had natural offensive talent and got better defensively as he played in the NHL so the comparison is only half true to this man.

Claesson is a really smart player, as the talent analysis above alludes to. Against the Stars here, he shows great anticipation in breaking up a semi odd-man rush:

Here he does a great job filling a lane and blocking a shot with the Rangers trailing by a goal late in the 3rd period (know people aren’t a fan of blocks to evaluate players, but they are valuable in shorthanded situations, and a 6-on-5 is technically a shorthanded situation, so I’m going to roll with this).

He’s been fairly effective as a penalty killer as well, even though he missed 11 games with a shoulder injury and was a scratch last night against the Senators. Here he makes a nice play while a man down that eventually ends up in a Kevin Hayes goal:

He’s not flashy, but Claesson is a smart player and has good enough skating ability to take advantage of open ice:

Claesson is not afraid to step up at the blue line, either; one of his best attributes in Ottawa last year was his ability to defend the blue line. This was a preseason game, but these are the types of plays he makes while defending entries:

It was disappointing to see Claesson as a healthy scratch last night, as many — not me — would argue he’s been the team’s most consistent defenseman this season. Regardless, for the ridiculously cheap contract the Rangers were able to get him at, Claesson has been one of the biggest surprises through the first quarter of the season, and hopefully he continues to shine as the season progresses.