71games GF 263 fantastic, GA 222 so far. we will finish over 240GA which i think is terrible. i blame the D, others blame the goaltending. suter / soucy / cole better than goligoski / kulikov / merrill / benn. feel free to prove me wrong. ps calgary only 178GA!
Ok. I'm operating under the assumption that xGF% is the best indicator of long-term success or failure. Looking at pairings (200+ minutes together), this is what we're looking at for xGF%:
Pairings:
21-22 D Pairings:
Goligoski-Spurgeon 56.3%
Brodin-Dumba 56%
Kulikov-Merrill 52.8%
Kulikov-Benn 42.2% (I wish the best for him as a person, but Benn really drags the D corps down)
20-21 D Pairings:
Suter-Spurgeon 56%
Brodin-Dumba 51.4%
Cole-Soucy 50.2%
There was less pairing juggling going on last year (likely due to more injuries this year) but overall the D-pairings this year have been as good or better than last year's. When there's stability (no injuries) 21-22's defensemen appear to be slightly better. If this is true, it means that the higher goals for is either due to overall team defense, or the goaltenders under-performing vs. last year.
Individuals:
Looking at the players individually, we see that the juggling has really effected their numbers:
21-22
Spurgeon 55%
Goligoski 51.3%
Dumba 49.3%
Brodin 48.1%
Middleton 48%
Merrill 42.5%
Kulikov 42%
Benn 39.1%
20-21
Spurgeon 53.1%
Suter 51.5%
Dumba 50.8%
Brodin 50.1%
Soucy 49.3%
Cole 47.9%
We see here that Goligoski has effectively replaced Suter, in spite of all the criticism against him. Spurgeon has actually been better this season. Everyone else has stumbled, which seems at odds with the d-pairing numbers which had the same players in them, yet higher %'s. I think this is probably explained by the sheer amount of d-pair juggling. None of those "bad" pairings have reached 200+ minutes. This further reinforces that the d-corps this year has been struggling mostly when there are injuries, leading to disruption of chemistry, and worse players playing (sorry Benn).
Goaltenders:
Finally, we need to look at the goaltenders. For this we'll use Goals Saved Above Expected. Higher numbers are better.
21-22
Talbot -5.4 (44 games)
Kahkonen 0.6 (most of this comes from his time with the Wild, 30 total games, 25 with Wild)
Fleury -15.5 (most of this comes from his time with Chicago, 50 total games, 5 with Wild)
20-21
Talbot -2.2 (33 games)
Kahkonen -13.1 (24 games)
Kahkonen was actually better this year, but played a smaller % of the games. Talbot has played a larger percentage of the games, and has been worse. Overall, I'd say it's near a wash.
Conclusion: The Wild rank 17th in GA this year, and ranked 15th last year, so... yeah, they're no better or worse defensively, really. Since Evason took over, they have played a more offensive game and, with the same goalies, they have been relatively equal in GA (relative to the rest of the league) each year regardless of personnel. Claiming one D-corps vs the other was better looks to be mostly a matter of personal preference at this point.
Oh, I should probably mention, all stats were collected from MoneyPuck.