NHL.com TOP 20 Defenseman

[Obvious Fabertism]

Seider has a bright future projection, but strictly at the moment I have no idea how he makes this list. On my own team he would be the 4th best defensemen in the upcoming season, Brodin, Faber, Spurgeon are all more effective hockey players at the moment (Spurgeon is supposedly back in full health.) Physical tools are great for him, but there is a lot of distance to go in the mental game still IMO.

I also don't know why Slavin always makes these lists while Brodin doesn't, both belong IMO.

 

[McJedi]

I’m an Avs fan but that’s overrating Toews. He’s probably top 20 but his game and effort levels are uneven. Some nights he’s every bit that ranking. But other nights he’s sloppy with the puck or disengaged.

Seider badly overrated as well. His defensive metrics are down right brutal. Sure he gets impossible minutes, but he gets smoked in those minutes so that’s hardly an achievement. It’s more like a sacrifice.

 

[The Crypto Guy]

Hedman at 3? Is this 2020 still?

 

[Regal]

He vastly outplayed the Norris stud that plays for the Canucks

Bouchard had a good series that deserves praise, but the idea that he vastly outplayed Hughes is not supported by the underlying numbers where the Canucks controlled the run of play by a wide margin with Hughes on the ice. That’s just trashing him back.

 

[Regal]

Because they aren’t the best.

Turn it around, would you ever consider a complete disaster in his own end to be the best?

One way players have less value, unless it’s so dominating

since he entered the league Hughes leads all dmen in power play points and has averaged 33 points per 82 games.

That’s including years where he was stuck on putrid teams.

You can keep hoping but Hughes has been elite since day one.

But these guys aren’t off the glass defensive types here. Guys like Forsling, Ekholm, Lindholm, Toews, Slavin, etc can all move the puck and support the offense well enough and are actually pretty solid ES scorers. I wouldn’t put them over the guys who can control a game offensively and/or are elite at both, but if someone is elite in their own end and above average in transition and on offense, I think that can make up for guys who are elite offensively and average or worse defensively. Like I’m not sure if someone like Dobson is actually any better than these types.

 

[Soundwave]

Bouchard had a good series that deserves praise, but the idea that he vastly outplayed Hughes is not supported by the underlying numbers where the Canucks controlled the run of play by a wide margin with Hughes on the ice. That’s just trashing him back.

He had a great series, not just good.

11 points in 7 games, primary assist on the game winner in game 7, +7 rating is outstanding.

In 3/4 Oiler wins he either scored the game winning goal or had the primary assist on the game winner, including the game 7 winner.

 

[Regal]

Seider has a bright future projection, but strictly at the moment I have no idea how he makes this list. On my own team he would be the 4th best defensemen in the upcoming season, Brodin, Faber, Spurgeon are all more effective hockey players at the moment (Spurgeon is supposedly back in full health.) Physical tools are great for him, but there is a lot of distance to go in the mental game still IMO.

I also don't know why Slavin always makes these lists while Brodin doesn't, both belong IMO.

I feel like Brodin has largely been overshadowed by Suter, Spurgeon, and now Faber. That said, in general the GAR/RAPM numbers suggest Slavin is similar at preventing goals but does a decently better job of bringing up his team’s offense. Though that could be partly impacted by his partner

 

[Regal]

He had a great series, not just good.

11 points in 7 games, primary assist on the game winner in game 7, +7 rating is outstanding.

In 3/4 Oiler wins he either scored the game winning goal or had the primary assist on the game winner, including the game 7 winner.

It was great in terms of production, though the combination of Silovs struggling with point shots and Bouchard being great at them played into that. In terms of the run of play I thought he played like a top defenseman, but not the dominating the run of play type I’ve seen from the best of Keith, Hedman, Leetch, etc. that I would call great.

 

[nbwingsfan]

What about his usage was ungodly? His TOI went down, that means he was not trusted to be on the ice as much. A #1 is an all-situation player. Power had about the same TOI as Seider.

He played the hardest minutes in the NHL, and by quite a large margin.

 

[KevinRedkey]

The best way to look at "right now" lists is to think who'd you'd draft in a team-building fantasy draft for a single year.

No one in their right mind is taking Hedman as the 3rd Dman picked. He was great and he's still good.. but reputation alone shouldn't get you that high.

 

[Hammman]

Do you think bouchard is the first Dman in history to get go pass to an elite player? Because he is the first Dman in history to get 26 assists in a single playoff run

I don't want to detract from Bouchard's excellent playoffs, but let's not ignore the context that Coffee had 25 assists in 7 fewer games. If you're looking at assists per game (with an arbitrary cutoff of 15 games) he slots in a 6th, which is still excellent but not 'best all time'.

 

[Pavels Dog]

His defensive metrics are down right brutal. Sure he gets impossible minutes, but he gets smoked in those minutes so that’s hardly an achievement.

But he doesn't. People need to stop thinking "defensive metrics" are actual results. An on-ice EV GD of -5 in the toughest minutes in recorded NHL history isn't getting smoked.

To put it this way; no one's been able to explain how Detroit could be a 91 point team last season if Seider was actually getting destroyed every shift and impacting the team negatively.

 

[CanadienShark]

Forsling quickly going from most underrated to most overrated.

Yeah, lot of problems with this ranking, but Forsling that high is absurd.

 

[Garbageyuk]

Pietrangelo is better than half the guys on the list.

 

[Sexy Necksy Garland]

Hedman at 3? Is this 2020 still?

who is your 1, 2, 3?

 

[The Crypto Guy]

who is your 1, 2, 3?

Makar, Hughes, Fox.

Literally nobody has Hedman in their top 3 right now, do you?

 

[Coffees]

1.Hieskanen
2. Q Hughss
3.Makar
4.Dahlin
5.not sure , wanna help me out?

@Ace of Hades

 

[Aladyyn]

List of defensemen who played 500+ minutes against "Elite" competition as defined by puckiq. Matheson, Parayko, Leddy, and Fowler are below Seider but didn't fit in the screenshot.

 

[Sexy Necksy Garland]

Makar, Hughes, Fox.

Literally nobody has Hedman in their top 3 right now, do you?

I'm more of a tears guy.

 

[bringbacktheskate604]

Karlsson had a 100 point Norris season the year before and he's not on the list at all.

Hughes has been getting better year over year, this was not a fluke but him taking another step towards his peak. Not to mention an actual capable partner.

EK had been on the downswing for a couple of years before his Norris win and is a lot older. Totally different.

 

[Maurice of Orange]

Pietrangelo is better than half the guys on the list.

No Pietrangelo is not better then any of the top 20 defensemen listed, he started slipping.

Pie took a hit last season and also missed multiple games throughout the season with different injuries and appendicitis.

 

[bringbacktheskate604]

104 PDO

Doubled his career high in goals and then proceeded to score 0 in playoffs, it's already begun.

Oh shit the PDO phenomenon regarding Vancouver last season has made its way into a Norris winners ranking from a list by ESPN.
Is there no limit this madness?.

BTW, there are so many other players on this list that are actually controversial especially based on your criteria.

Like why is Fox dropped to 8th? Or why is Hedman ahead of Josi?funniest thing is Quinn didn't just come out of nowhere and using the fact that he improved over last year as some kind of negative while using PDO as some kind of proof for a dman who's goal scoring is probably his weakest area is hilarious.

 

[bringbacktheskate604]

Two Oilers on that list is going to stress some people the **** out.

Not really, there's been a clear agenda for the media to pump up the team with the best and most exciting player in the world and I get why.

And to be fair while I don't think either one deserves to be on the list I actually kind of get why they are.

Bouchard had 81 points and a shit tonne in the playoffs and while it's obvious that playing 100% of his shifts with Mcdrai heavily influenced that he still got those points.

As for Ekholm, the fact that he was able to cover for the fact that Bouchard is god awful in his zone kind of makes them a package deal.
I'm sure you'll take this the wrong way but but I don't actually mean this in a bad way since while I doubt it could be replicated on any other team it works for the oilers.

 

[Czechboy]

Lmao. I love Edmonton bullshit. He had 8 of those points in 2 games, that make you feel better about the loss? Shutdown in game 7, scored nothing in two other games.

Mcdavid did the best against him all playoffs, but it’s funny you’re coming at me so hard when he got 3 points in 5 other games. But keep hanging your hat on 11 points.

It's true... if you take away the games where he got points and only talk about the ones he didn't get points.. then he was really bad!

I can't believe he won the Conn Smythe after getting 'shutdown'
.

 

[Czechboy]

I think I've cracked the code!

Bouch is awful

Any good D metrics - all Ekholm
Any good offensive metrics - all McD

He's being carried at both ends and does very little.