A look back at Sidney Crosby's defense over the past decade

[Midnight Judges]

This is the end of a decade so it's a good time to look back at defensive statistics over that span. Much has been made of points for this decade, but obviously goals against are also important, especially in terms of evaluating if a player has an elite defensive impact.

This is a comparison of goals against with Sidney Crosby on the ice vs elite defensive players. I threw in Ovechkin for reference:

09/10 through 18/19 Regular Season
	Crosby	Bergeron	Ovechkin	Toews	Kopitar	Datsyuk
EV GA	481	379	548	470	493	240
EV TOI	10717	10251	12218	11276	12350	8438
Total EV GA/60	2.693	2.218	2.691	2.501	2.395	1.707
PPSHGA	53	24	51	31	31	16
PP TOI	2610	1933	3271	2198	2405	1343
Total	1.218	0.745	0.935	0.846	0.773	0.715
EV+PP GA	534	403	599	501	524	256
EV+PP TOI	13327	12184	15489	13474	14755	9781
EV+PPGA/60	2.404	1.985	2.320	2.231	2.131	1.570
PK TOI	295	1417	21	1156	1493	295
PK TOI/GP	27 seconds	1:57	2 seconds	1:35	1:57	41 seconds

[TBODY] [/TBODY]

"PPSHGA" = power play short handed goals against.

And playoffs:

09/10 through 18/19 Playoffs
Player	Crosby	Bergeron	Ovechkin	Toews	Kopitar	Datsyuk
EV GA	98	58	76	70	36	27
EV TOI	1912	1789	1768	1900	1293	931
Total EV GA/60	3.075	1.945	2.579	2.211	1.671	1.740
PPSHGA	8	4	3	2	1	3
PP TOI	483	320	463	326	268	203
Total	0.994	0.750	0.389	0.368	0.224	0.887
EV+PP GA	106	62	79	72	37	30
EV+PP TOI	2395	2109	2231	2226	1561	1134
EV+PPGA/60	2.656	1.764	2.125	1.941	1.422	1.587
PK TOI	24.5 Minutes	225	4:24	197	162	56
PK TOI/GP	13 Seconds	1:54	2 seconds	1:47	2:03	0:57

[TBODY] [/TBODY]

The stat that jumps out here is Pavel Datsyuk's EV GA/60. It is positively miniscule! Easy to understand why he was a Selke favorite. He's a true shutdown forward, and these weren't even his best seasons!

Patrice Bergeron is also a standout here, preventing goals against in all situations and taking heavy penalty killing duties.

Same goes for Kopitar, and especially in the postseason, he has played as a true shutdown C.

Click to read more...

 

[Nathaniel Skywalker]

If you think ovechkin is anywhere close to Crosby in defence you know nothing about the sport.

 

[CheckingLineCenter]

It’s just rent free

 

[TeddyBare]

If you think ovechkin is anywhere close to Crosby in defence you know nothing about the sport.

There was a thread like a month ago by that one guy that said Ovechkin's defensive game is incredibly underrated and it should be talked about as one of his top traits almost equal to his goal scoring.

good times.

 

[Ms Maggie]

Love agenda driven posts.

 

[CanadianPensFan1]

So. f***ing. Pejorative Slured.

 

[TheAngryHank]

Love agenda driven posts.

But do the numbers lie?

 

[Kranix]

Are you trying to ruin daver's holidays?

 

[Trade]

Why is Ovi included in the chart? He’s a few good tiers below the others listed.

 

[Jacob]

 

[Hockey Outsider]

But do the numbers lie?

I've spot-checked many (but not all) of the numbers, and it looks like what he's posted is accurate.

Some important context is missing though - what type of goaltending were these players in front of? Crosby's playoff numbers aren't very good (in terms of goals against per minute), but Marc Andre Fleury was awful four years in a row (posting numbers that would have been respectable in the 1980's). Bergeron has never played in front of goaltending that stopped fewer than 90.5% of their shots in any playoff run in the 2010's.

(That being said - there's no question that Bergeron is a better defensive player than Crosby. But I think the gap between them is smaller than the numbers suggest, because we're comparing Thomas and Rask to some truly awful years from Fleury).

 

[Vijo Morganstein]

God Datsyuk was amazing

 

[HockeySniper]

Numbers don’t lie. Guess people just have narratives. I’ve seen Crosby a million times his defensive game isn’t that great and is vastly overrated. I think defense generally as a foward is completely blown out of proportion. There’s a lot of things in hockey that needs fixing

 

[GreatGonzo]

Who knew Crosby wasn’t as good defensively as some of the best defensive forwards over the last 10 years, AND better defensively than Ovechkin?

Going into 2020 with some shocking stuff...

 

[Kranix]

I think Sid himself would tell you Datsyuk was on another level than him. Datsyuk was amazing

 

[Kuznetsnow]

 

[FreeMcdavid]

Sid is a beast! best this decade by far

 

[Icarium]

If you are putting Ovechkin here instead of Backstrom you might as well put Kunitz instead of Crosby. Since you are comparing apples and oranges.

 

[TheAngryHank]

I've spot-checked many (but not all) of the numbers, and it looks like what he's posted is accurate.

Some important context is missing though - what type of goaltending were these players in front of? Crosby's playoff numbers aren't very good (in terms of goals against per minute), but Marc Andre Fleury was awful four years in a row (posting numbers that would have been respectable in the 1980's). Bergeron has never played in front of goaltending that stopped fewer than 90.5% of their shots in any playoff run in the 2010's.

(That being said - there's no question that Bergeron is a better defensive player than Crosby. But I think the gap between them is smaller than the numbers suggest, because we're comparing Thomas and Rask to some truly awful years from Fleury).

Context does matter .
Some of the above posters blew it off because of the op. Everyone has an agenda behind every post ,doesn’t mean the context is not accurate.

 

[KareemTrustfund]

I don’t like this gif. That’s not his man what’s he supposed to do? It looked like Malkin had him.

 

[Individual 1]

I don’t like this gif. That’s not his man what’s he supposed to do? It looked like Malkin had him.

Not to mention the shot goes through Zatkoff? ( I can't clearly see the goalie number). It is just poorly played by Malkin and the goalie.

 

[Midnight Judges]

Some important context is missing though - what type of goaltending were these players in front of? Crosby's playoff numbers aren't very good (in terms of goals against per minute), but Marc Andre Fleury was awful four years in a row (posting numbers that would have been respectable in the 1980's). Bergeron has never played in front of goaltending that stopped fewer than 90.5% of their shots in any playoff run in the 2010's.

I considered that but having looked at on-ice goal tending save percentages on Natural Stat trick for Sid and Ovie and Bergeron, nothing really jumped out. Bergeron has the best on-ice save percentage of the three spanning two main goalies. IMO the data suggests that Thomas and Rask had excellent save percentages because of Bergeron (and other skaters), not despite them.

Also, Marc-Andre Fleury is currently being debated as a hall of famer:

Is Marc-Andre Fleury a Hall-of-Famer?

Playing in front of MAF is not some significant disadvantage relative to the other players in the OP. MAF's save percentages over the years are generally average to above average. Yes, his stats look bad over a very small sample of playoff games over four seasons (one of which Crosby didn't even play), but if you recall, the Pens playoff style from the time - particularly the playoff series against the Flyers in 2012 which was completely out of control - there wasn't much defense being played at either end of the ice by the skaters, and definitely not by Sid (who somehow managed to score 5 even strength points and still wind up at plus minus negative 3 for the 6 game series). Sid's offensive numbers greatly benefitted from the firewagon style that his team deployed at times, this is merely the other side of that coin.

I'm skeptical of trying to evaluate goal tending based on save percentage and concluding the pattern is unrelated to individual skaters even in a very large sample size (such as what is in the OP).

 

[Kairi Zaide]

Why are special units even included in this

Especially powerplay

 

[Jacob]

I don’t like this gif. That’s not his man what’s he supposed to do? It looked like Malkin had him.

People that don’t understand the sport think all 5 guys are supposed to backcheck like they’re being chased by wolves or they’re lazy.

 

[Hank Plank]