Just Who Is Mark Fayne

After last season we as fans knew that the major area of weakness on this team was at the defensive position. Craig MacTavish made a few moves to shore up the rear guards. Including Mark Fayne, it was rumored in that new window where a team can try an woo prospective free agents that Fayne was on the top of the Oilers list.

With good reason too, Fayne (6’3”, 210lbs) brings a lot of what the Oilers are lacking. He’s big, he can hit, he clears the net, he plays defense. Really he is the complete package and exactly what the Oilers need. I’m very excited to see just what he’ll bring this season but I expect that his addition is going to be the single biggest signing MacT made this offseason.

Fayne has, up until now, has played his entire NHL career with the New Jersey Devils. Much was made when the Oil signed Fayne of his time spent with Jersey’s number 1 defenseman Andy Greene, but when you delve further into his numbers it didn’t really matter who he played with his numbers all pointed in the right direction.

Fayne faced much tougher competition that Greene did and came away with very similar numbers, and while they two are compared to each other quite a bit Green was much more sheltered by his coach. Fayne was the guy called upon to play against the league’s best players and was the only New Jersey defenseman who got the majority of his zone starts in the defensive zone. In fact Jonathan Willis wrote about it over at Oilers Nation, and there is one quote in that article that really stuck out for me;

Fayne’s played in the Eastern Conference for his entire career, but even so his most frequent 25 opponents feature some of the game’s biggest names. Fayne’s been on the ice against John Tavares more than against any other player in the league. Claude Giroux ranks third, Eric Staal fourth. Other notables include James Neal, Martin St. Louis, Steven Stamkos, Alex Ovechkin, Phil Kessel, Evgeni Malkin, Marian Gaborik and Tyler Seguin.

See what I mean, this guy is a player. Don’t expect him to put up a lot of points though. His season high is 13 points in 2011-2012, but it’s not points that he’s expected to produce. I do think he’ll break that season high this year as he’ll probably be playing quite a bit with the Oilers top offensive line, and that in itself will lead to more assists and the odd goal.

The Oilers have found themselves the perfect player here, think Jason Smith, Steve Staios, but better and younger. Fayne is still only 27 and by the time this new contract is up he’ll be only 31. MacT is trying to build a winner and Fayne is exactly the type of player that will help this team win. Keeping pucks out of the net is key to not losing games and Fayne specializes in that.

Here’s a video of Fayne scoring one of his few goals, and like I said I think we’ll see a few more just like it this season.

Thanks for reading.

[youtube https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=ULF5xRn7dqA]