Brian39
Registered User
- Apr 24, 2014
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Yeah I definitely don't think anyone should expect him to be a 'high-end 1D guy' at this stage in his career, but I do think that 35-40 points with his usage would put him squarely into mid-tier 1D considering that production would be almost exclusively at even strength.40+ point range with his defensive skill and usage is getting hin into that true 1D category we need. He'd still be a low end, and I'd like my 1D to gave a better breakout pass. But he'd be making an impact consistently in both ends of the ice which is something we don't have in a D.
Only 11 D men had 40+ points at even strength last season and 20 guys were at 35+. Q Hughes led the league with 54 even strength points.
Charlie McAvoy has never had 40+ even strength points in a season. Neither has Miro Heiskanen. Forsling has never hit 40 and had 37 last year in a season where he finished 9th in Norris voting. Adam Fox has only hit 40 even strength points once in his career and it was 40 on the nose. He paced for 32 even strength points in his Norris season.
35-40 even strength points puts you right among that group of guys that are pretty well regarded as good 2-way 1D. Unless being a good PP QB is a requirement to be considered anything more than a low-end 1D, I think that type of production from Parayko combined with his defensive heavy lifting would give us more than just a low-end 1D.
We are a ways away from being able to pencil Parayko into that group. We're talking about a 14 game sample size and it is far from a given that he could keep this up over a multiple seasons. And maybe people want to point at the poor possession/underlying metrics to say that he isn't good enough defensively. But I am in the group that very strongly believes that our current advanced metrics don't adequately measure D who get such difficult minutes/assignments and my eyes tell me that he does a good job defensively.