Let me preface my message by acknowledging just how bad Carrick has been in pre-season this year, but I'm not willing to give up on him yet.
Here is a list of every partner Carrick has played with for more than 50 minutes of 5v5 play the last 3 years combined.
Partner | TOI (5v5) | rel.CF% |
Jake Gardiner | 996 minutes | +3.14 |
Morgan Rielly | 244 minutes | +3.8 |
Andreas Borgman | 215 minutes | -0.08 |
Travis Dermott | 184 minutes | +7.46 |
Martin Marincin | 116 minutes | -3.63 |
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To me there are three things that stand out:
#1. He's able to handle top-4 minutes very well. When he's played (imo) over his head and played in the higher comp/harder zone start minutes, he's shown the ability to be a great partner for either one of our top-2 defenseman.
#2. Carrick and Marincin DO NOT work together. We saw this in the pre-season this year, and it's been proven in their 116 5v5 minutes together that they should not be a pair.
#3. He and Travis Dermott together is a god-like 3rd pairing. When together, these two guys just dominate shot shares (+14.72 rel.xGF% LOL). If Travis Dermott is on the third pairing next season (he really should be in the Top-4) and they can duplicate what they did last season, we're laughing.
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"He's terrible defensively and too small to get anything done"
Well Babcock loves to shelter his third pairing anyway, and of all 213 defenseman that played over 500 minutes last season here is where the bottom pair guys (Polak, Dermott, Borgman, and Carrick) rank in ToIQoC (1st would be easiest comp):
Borgman - 3rd
Carrick - 11th
Dermott - 12th
Polak - 20th
These guys get very very easy comp, but to be fair Polak (ugh) did get some really ****ty zone starts in comparison to the other 3.
Over the last 3 years, there have been 9 Leafs defenseman to have played over 1000 minutes. On that list, Carrick has played the 8th easiest comp. During that comp, he's put up the 2nd best rel.CF% and the best rel.xGF% - which shows he's absolutely not a liability out there by any means.
The only defenseman to give up less shot attempts per 60 minutes? Marincin (it's one of the main reason's why I'm a fan of his too).
The only two defenseman to be on the ice for more than his shot attempts for? Rielly and Phaneuf.
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Here's are the shots allowed when he's on the ice:
He plays RD, obviously. This show's he's actually very good at suppressing HD chances.
In comparison, here's Morgan Rielly:
Much harder minutes, much better defenseman, but you can still see how beat up Rielly get's in the slot in comparison to a guy like Carrick.
I know nobody will read this, and I'm sure people are going to be all like "Carrick sux because two preseason games, small, dur dur dur", but we'd be giving up on a guy who's been better than Zaitsev two years running, has more than handled top-4 duties, and has blasted bottom-pair duties with Dermott. If we let him go, I'm confident (if he get's another chance, **** this league man) he'd make us regret it.