I mean comparable in ability. All the numbers are quite good for the back end individually. Makar, Toews, Manson, and Girard are all top 50 this year in xGF, top 20 in SC%, top 50 in HDC%. Again I think the poor goaltending is really skewing everyones view on the defense worse than it's been. That's not to say the defense has been perfect or hasn't made mistakes. But we've been a top ~10 defense this year with a goalie who's quality starts is comparable to Korpisalo, Wedgewood, JoJo, and Vanacek.
The analytics don't match the eye test IMO. I think we rely too much on analytics alone here to compare the play of the team this year vs the Cup year, or Georgiev to Kuemper.
The sample size of one season isn't large enough to weed out all the variance for many of these public stats, so they shouldn't be relied so heavily on to define players. Just one example being players like Toews and Girard this year, who played entirely different during a couple months in the middle of the season, versus how they did at the beginning and end of the season.
Which basically gives you a couple different seasons within a season, and therefore a much smaller sample size for each, making each one even more susceptible to flawed conclusions.
Perhaps some have had their opinion on the play of the D core influenced by goaltending, but only those that are being results oriented. Whether the team allows a goal or not, is a separate event from the coverage mistake or the turnover, and these have both happened a fair amount more this year based on the eye test.