2015 Report Cards: Tanner Glass

Oh where to begin with Tanner Glass; do we start with the reaction to his signing way back in July of last year? Or should we talk about how better, more talented players were continually healthy scratched in favor of him? How about we start with the fact that there was going to be no way that Tanner Glass would be a valuable asset in any way.

Coming into this season the Rangers needed to revamp their 4th line with the departures of Brian Boyle (Tampa Bay) and Derek Dorsett (Vancouver Canucks) and while they picked up versatile 4th liner Lee Stempniak to play alongside Dominic Moore, the Rangers also signed Tanner Glass to a three year $4.35 million contract for reasons that still perplex me to this day with young players like Jesper Fast, J.T. Miller, and Oscar Lindberg all toiling around in the AHL and Anthony Duclair and Kevin Hayes making the roster out of camp.

Then as the season started head coach Alain Vigneault thought that he could rely on his fourth line to be the defensive stalwart and soak up the tough defensive minutes that they did last year...nope. Because of the defensive shortcomings of the 4th line, AV was forced to shelter Glass and start him in the offensive zone (especially after icings) which forced the Rangers offensive players to get more defensive zone starts (especially guys that aren't great defensively like Chris Kreider and Martin St. Louis).

The season went on, Tanner Glass kept playing. Players were traded away and traded for and Tanner Glass kept playing (sorry Lee Stempniak, and James Sheppard). It took an infectious disease to actually sideline Glass for more than one or two games and he still came back to play 66 regular season games and 19 playoff games inexplicably and against all evidence saying that he should definitely not be playing.

That's not to say that good ol' Teflon Tanner didn't have any highlights this year, because he did. One specific, glorious highlight.

So glorious.

With all of that being said let's get down to the final grades, shall we?

Offense: Given the lowest of low expectations, Tanner actually managed to kinda sorta match them? He put up 1-5-6 in 66 games and 0-1-1 in 19 playoff games. Grade: D+

Defense: His role is a 4th line winger, take defensive assignments and survive. He didn't do that. 40.3% CF, while being his second best possession season, is still awful and his -12.3% CFRel and -229 Corsi Differential both speak for themselves. Grade: F

Final Grade: Tanner Glass is bad at hockey, has a bad contract, and kept better players in the minors or healthy scratched for far too long. The biggest problem is that we knew this was coming and it still managed to be worse than we imagined though the goal does bump him up a bit in terms of absurdity and for it's comedic value.

Grade: D

Grade Tanner Glass