Carolina's got pretty good defensive metrics across the board, arguably better than the Jets. They're a bit better at limiting shots, but the Jets are a bit better at limiting danger.
5v5 | CA/60 | FA/60 | SA/60 | GA/60 | xGA/60 | SCA/60 | HDCA/60 |
CAR | 49, 1st | 36, 1st | 24, 1st | 2.54, 22nd | 2.38, 11th | 24, 5th | 11, 21st |
WPG | 58, 13th | 41, 15th | 26, 13th | 1.74, 1st | 2.33, 6th | 24, 6th | 10, 9th |
Looking at Slavin and Samberg on ice results (defensemen with 500+ TOI at 5v5, 214 players):
5v5 | CA/60 | FA/60 | SA/60 | GA/60 | xGA/60 | SCA/60 | HDCA/60 |
Slavin | 53, 20th | 38, 40th | 25, 47th | 2.70, 156th | 2.36, 66th | 24, 47th | 10, 73rd |
Samberg | 56, 64th | 39, 55th | 24, 18th | 2.00, 37th | 2.25, 30th | 24, 36th | 10, 53rd |
Samberg's got better SA/60, xGA/60, SCA/60, and HDCA/60 (and of course way better GA/60, but that's mostly due to goaltending differences).
You could probably team-adjust those individual numbers. Slavin's 4 CA/60 worse than his team overall. Samberg's 2 CA/60 better than the Jets overall CA/60.
Almost across the board, Samberg's better than the Jets overall in CA, FA, SA, xGA, SCA, and HDCA (I rounded the decimals, but he's slightly better in both). GA is still influenced by luck, even at this sample size, so Samberg being at 2.00 vs the Jets overall 1.74 isn't particularly concerning. 37th best D in the league in GA/60 is still good. Especially when you consider his deployment (see below).
OTOH, Slavin's worse than the Canes overall in CA, FA, SA, GA, and SCA, but slightly better than the Canes in xGA, and HDCA.
But wait, there's more! Deployment:
Slavin gets 59.43% offensive zone starts, and 6.74 DZ starts/60.
Samberg gets just 32.02% offensive zone starts and 9.58 DZ starts/60.
So not only do Samberg's stats look better than Slavin's, Samberg's getting a tougher deployment.
So, in conclusion, Samberg's season has exceeded that of Slavin's in just about every measurable way (including individual points/60).