...except for the first year there which happens to be the one where he put up great numbers. He played 16:12 a night at 5 on 5 that season vs mid-tier competition.
After that, he was elevated to a larger role. In the rest of his time on the Island, he played between 17:18 and 18:09 per night at 5 on 5. For reference, he was at 18:33 a night last year.
He played 1471, 1447, 1393, & 1421 5 on 5 minutes between 2015-2019. The difference between those numbers are about a shift per game. He put up better numbers throughout the majority of those seasons.
In this stretch where he played 17+ 5 on 5 minutes a night on the Island, he went -58 over 440 games on a team that had a +53 goal differential over the same stretch. He had the worst +/- of any defender on the Islanders in 2015/16, 2017/18 (he was an astonishing -42 while the next worst was -9), 2018/19, and 2020/21. He was 2nd worst in 2019/20 and 3rd worst in 2016/17.
Why are you combining all of those years when there's a clear outlier? He was -9, -3, -42, 0 when those Islander teams were +9, +6, -16, +34. Those first 2 years are perfectly fine output for someone being deployed as your primary offensive Defenseman even if you're considering +/- to be the end all of defensive play, which we know isn't the case. When you look at the microstats, Leddy was better across the board even when he was -42 in terms of exit%s
He was 2.45 GA per 60 at 5 on 5 in 2015/16, which was dead last among all 7 D who played 50+ games for the Isles. His 2.49 in 2016/17 was 4th on the team. His 3.49 in 2017/18 was last again. His 2.41 in 2018/19 was last again. His 2.55 in 2019/20 was 2nd to last. His 2.28 in 2020/21 was last again. The Isles were a significantly better team defensively than the Blues were last year. They allowed 2.76 goals per game while Leddy was logging top pair minutes while the Blues allowed 3.63 per game.
When the the Isle's team defense (and/or goaltending) is preventing .87 goals per game more than last year's Blues team and he is allowing more goals than everyone else in the top 4, I don't consider being in the mid-2s as more effective than being at 2.82 on the Blues (and being 1st among the top 4).
Why should we excuse Leddy from responsibility in the outcomes of these. If he's being used as a shutdown defender, a successful season would have resulted in a better overall season, especially since he sacrificed the offensive impact he was having in those season. Leddy's defensive weaknesses are the same as they've always been. He's not good at retrievals and relies heavily on his partner for that. We've been ragging the coaching for entry defense, but Leddy's results on those last season aren't any different from what was going on in Long Island.
Also it's worth pointing out that the current era in the NHL is higher scoring in general than even 2018, and a majority of that is coming from improvements in the Powerplay and offense off the rush, the first being irrelevant for 5on5 defense and the latter playing against his historical strengths.
In his time with Chicago, he only had 1 season where he played more than 14 minutes a night at 5 on 5. In that season, his numbers were uglier than they were this year and he was being sheltered by Keith, Seabrook, and Hjalmarsson taking the hard minutes. He started in the O-zone 55% of time and only had 3 more even strength points.
I just don't agree that he was ineffective in his role this year. He went +4 overall. -3 at 5 on 5. That's succeeding when you're on the most defensively oriented top pair of the last decade. 23 even strength points basically playing even in that role is being effective.
Not sure what you're trying to say here. If it's for leddy specifically, sure I guess, but that also means he's playing with his best defensive partner. His performance in the zone didn't see any meaningful improvement over previous years in his career. His exits were up to par or just below his norm in Long island, and his retrievals & entry defense were still not good. The Blues were -8 at 5 on 5 last season, being -3 there isn't really a boon that makes up for when he was putting up double the points in a lower scoring league, even if he was getting power play time then.
His career high is 31 even strength points and that was the only time he hit 30. He's been a low-to-mid 20 even strength points guy pretty much his entire career in either offensive or balanced usage. The PP points do nothing for me. The Isles PP was 25th in the league over the years when he was there picking up 10-20 PP points a year as their top PP QB. He didn't demonstrate high end offensive ability on the PP that moves the needle for me.
Outscoring at even strength in the NHL on the mid 10s is not nothing (on a team with demonstrably less shooting talent as well). Being the top scoring defenseman for 4 seasons isn't nothing. His individual offensive contributions in the offensive zone show a clear difference in setup and offensive generation between then and now, while his work in the defensive zone was more or less the same.
