NHL Networks top 20 Defensemen

[KirkAlbuquerque]

Josi, Rielly, Doughty, Pietrangelo, and Burns are all ridiculously high.

Josi is too low

 

[Blacephalon]

Chychrun too low. Should be top 3

He’s definitely a top 3 most overrated defenceman in the league

 

[WhiskeyYerTheDevils]

Yea I’m ok now, but seriously John Carlson is better then Jaccob Slavin.

Carlson’s 17 goals, 54 assists and 71 points could attest to that my friend.

Being able to rack up PP points next to the best PP goal scorer of all time really isn't all that impressive.

Slavin actually outscored Carlson at 5v5 this year (29 points vs 26).

 

[Lays]

Weird combination of young players being ranked too high due to the initial hype (Seider) and old players ranked way too high based on hype from ten years ago (Letang).

6 is a bit high for Letang but he’s still top 10-15

 

[Jared Dunn]

It could be debated Rielly over MacAvoy or vice versa.

No it could not. McAvoy is better

 

[Sidney the Kidney]

Disagree.

Which Group of d-men would you say are better defensively?

Group A:
Trouba
Provorov
Peeke
Parayko
McCabe
Pietrangelo
Seider
Tanev
Weegar
Jones

Group B:
Yandle
Zadorov
Mike Rielly
Hughes
Björnfot
Kulak
Montour
Leddy
Jack Johnson
Scandella

You just picked a random group of solid defenders and a random group of bad defenders. Just because some defensemen who are known as good defensively get blocks doesn't mean the stat itself is a good measure of defensive ability. If it was, then the top guys should be at/near the top of the category every season. Instead, take a look at where noted defensive studs like Slavin, Pelech, McAvoy, etc. rank league-wide in blocked shots.

If a stat has a direct correlation to defensive ability, then why is McAvoy all the way down at 33rd? Pelech down at 39th? Or Slavin, the so-called top defensive D-man in the league, all the way down at 52nd? Tyler Myers outshines all three of those guys.

For a stat to be a good measure of something, then the results should reflect that. The fact that the rankings of defensemen in blocked shots is a mishmash of some good, some really bad players, shows it has no real link to defensive ability. For every Chris Tanev high on the list, you have a Calvin de Haan or Andrew Peeke. For every Esa Lindell in the top 20, you have a Brent Burns or a Tyler Myers.

 

[ArGarBarGar]

Seider could establish himself as #11 this year, but one season is way too small a sample size to anoint him that high at this point.

Still, glad to see that such a young defenseman is able to get this kind of attention in the media. Hopefully, Edvinsson can do the same.

 

[MAB1]

Whut.

Is this what happens when you stat watch and dont watch the games or?

So to recap for HF:

- NHL player opinions don't matter
- NHL front office opinions don't matter
- Stats don't matter
- NHL media don't count bc "bias"

Eye-test by fans that peaked at AAA hockey at best above all else matters.

 

[Luigi Lemieux]

Nice to see Letang get some respect. He hasn't really declined at all. I think the recent hfboards had an effect

 

[Pavels Dog]

You just picked a random group of solid defenders and a random group of bad defenders. Just because some defensemen who are known as good defensively get blocks doesn't mean the stat itself is a good measure of defensive ability. If it was, then the top guys should be at/near the top of the category every season. Instead, take a look at where noted defensive studs like Slavin, Pelech, McAvoy, etc. rank league-wide in blocked shots.

If a stat has a direct correlation to defensive ability, then why is McAvoy all the way down at 33rd? Pelech down at 39th? Or Slavin, the so-called top defensive D-man in the league, all the way down at 52nd? Tyler Myers outshines all three of those guys.

For a stat to be a good measure of something, then the results should reflect that. The fact that the rankings of defensemen in blocked shots is a mishmash of some good, some really bad players, shows it has no real link to defensive ability. For every Chris Tanev high on the list, you have a Calvin de Haan or Andrew Peeke. For every Esa Lindell in the top 20, you have a Brent Burns or a Tyler Myers.

But it wasn't random. It was d-men who played 70+ games, and one grouping were the top 10 in blocked shots, the other group the bottom 10. The fact that one group is so clearly better defensive players shows that there is some value to the statistic.

McAvoy at 33rd is relatively high league wide. That's in the top ~10%.

There is no one perfect stat that perfectly reflects defensive ability, but you shouldn't ignore a data point because it's not perfect. The way to rate Slavin correctly isn't to ignore blocked shots, it's to add other data points that show his value, such as shorthanded icetime (2nd in the league), +/- (8th in the league), penalty minutes (5th lowest among d-men with 50+GP), and that's not even getting analytics or the good old eyetest.

 

[Boom Boom Apathy]

Being able to rack up PP points next to the best PP goal scorer of all time really isn't all that impressive.

Slavin actually outscored Carlson at 5v5 this year (29 points vs 26).

Slavin will always struggle in rankings like this. This past season, he had more 5v5 points McAvoy, Hughes, Carlson, Seider, and Heiskanen, but they all play on the 1st PP unit and rack up the points on the PP and Slavin doesn't. Part of that is his offensive skill-set isn't as good as those guys, part of it is he's so valuable defensively, they don't use him on the 1st PP unit as they have other options (Faulk-->Hamilton-->DeAngelo-->Burns). It's hard to take those three aspects into account in rankings, so I get it.

He was also 2nd in the NHL among all defensemen in PK TOI last year. The only other players from this "top 20"list that year were: Burns (11th), Pietrangelo (29th), and Eckblad (50th). Slavin also faces the toughest competition with partners that aren't great defensively (Dougie, DeAngelo). Some of the players on the list get easier match-ups designed to let them have less responsibility defensively, while utilizing their offensive talent and don't play as much on the PK, thus not expending as much energy playing on it.

How a player is used makes it difficult to rank many of these guys, particularly when PP points are weighed so heavily. 13th for Slavin doesn't seem that unreasonable given the focus on PP points in these rankings.

 

[mlzy]

Did Dougie Hamilton retire or something?

 

[HighPlainsDrifter]

Leave Pylon John alone.

 

[McJedi]

The overrating of Seider continues.

 

[MuckOG]

Brodin is criminally under-rated. I'm not sure where he would rank, but there are not 20 defensemen that I would take over him.

 

[BigEezyE22]

I’d have Carlson at #5 and he is better then Slavin IMO.

Carlson might be #5 if we were only talking about the Metro.

 

[strattonius]

Hughes would have done the same thing if he had been in Makar's shoes. Hughes' talents aren't as obvious as Makar's because Colorado has a much stronger team than Vancouver at current. Makar also plays with Toews while Hughes plays with Luke Schenn (who I love, but is clearly not Devon Toews).

Don't embarrass Canuck fans.

Makar is a special player and no one is doing what he does if they were in his position.

That doesn't mean Hughes isn't a special player in his own right but your take is brutal homerism.

 

[norrisnick]

The overrating of Seider continues.

I wonder if all these sources just come to HFBoards for their analysis? That's the only thing that makes sense, right?

 

[FunkySeeFunkyDo]

6 is a bit high for Letang but he’s still top 10-15

You’ll have to list the 9 to 14 better.

Not obvious to me that Letang isn’t 5 and McAvoy is 6.

 

[The Real JT]

Jacob Slavin is a great Dman. He should be higher and by the same token then why not Adam Pelech?

 

[Kairi Zaide]

This is still a 28 year old dman that has a career high of 28pts not playing with Makar. I could be talked into the tail end of top 20, and I think I'd put him on the Canadian Olympic team atm like Bouwmeester or Vlasic were. But a top 10 position player should have shown the ability to elevate their team, not just supplement an already great team like Toews has.

I would say that he has actually proven to elevate that team. Makar performs far better with him. He's been a key part as to why Colorado became a legit contender these past two seasons. It might be short lived in his case, for sure.

So does Noah Hanifin. So does Hampus Lindholm. So does Nate Schmidt. Lots of defenseman have put up impressive micro-stats in their careers. And on a team that were the buzzsaw Avalanche I think you have to take some of these stats with a grain of salt. Just like every Corsi event is not created equal same can be said about zone entries or exits.

Toews has great microstats all around, and that was the case with the Islanders. It translated well to Colorado; it didn't come "out of nowhere". If it was a one time thing, I'd agree it must be taken with a grain of salt. There's a lot of things with transition play that isn't as strongly related to team strength as Corsi / xG / etc. are, but for sure they might be related to coaching.

This I will concede as a well argued point, there's not a whole lot separating these players. But Pietrangelo, Doughty, Burns, and even Ekblad and Slavin have carried top pairings while Toews simply hasn't. I just think that while the very top of the defenseman position is in great shape, the next 15-20 dmen aren't up to the standards of the last decade judging from this list.

I don't think it's fair to say that he hasn't carried a 1st pairing with colorado, simply because he hasn't been given the opportunity to, by virtue of Makar being a top 3 d-man (arguably the best) in the league. But he kinda played 1st pairing with the Isles (they didn't have a "true" 1st pairing playing 25-30 minutes a night though) and afaik it went pretty well (ECF), and his pairing performed incredibly well too.

He's definitely benefited from great coaching that matches his style and elevates his play so far in his career, that's for sure. Him "popping out of nowhere" in his mid 20s will always be a red flag when it comes to longevity, and he could fall off a cliff really fast. His career trajectory is not all that different from Schmidt, to be honest, so far at least. A notch above Nate's peak, though.

bolded

 

[TheRumble]

Hughes would have done the same thing if he had been in Makar's shoes. Hughes' talents aren't as obvious as Makar's because Colorado has a much stronger team than Vancouver at current. Makar also plays with Toews while Hughes plays with Luke Schenn (who I love, but is clearly not Devon Toews).

Man I need to go to Vancouver and try getting me the shit they sell from those grey market psychedelics mushroom dispensaries.

 

[Kaners Bald Spot]

I have Seth Jones ahead of everyone on that list from 15-20 personally, and Hughes and Seider are too high based on potential. 3 years from now? Sure. Right now? No.

 

[Sidney the Kidney]

But it wasn't random. It was d-men who played 70+ games, and one grouping were the top 10 in blocked shots, the other group the bottom 10. The fact that one group is so clearly better defensive players shows that there is some value to the statistic.

McAvoy at 33rd is relatively high league wide. That's in the top ~10%.

There is no one perfect stat that perfectly reflects defensive ability, but you shouldn't ignore a data point because it's not perfect. The way to rate Slavin correctly isn't to ignore blocked shots, it's to add other data points that show his value, such as shorthanded icetime (2nd in the league), +/- (8th in the league), penalty minutes (5th lowest among d-men with 50+GP), and that's not even getting analytics or the good old eyetest.

The problem is the person I originally quoted was using it as exactly that -- on its own, a reflection of a player's defensive ability. Regardless of whether it's got little value or no value, the bottom line is it's not some kind of stat that does a good job as an indicator of how well or poorly someone plays defense. If it was, then you'd consistently see the best defenders in the league dominating it.

It's like using plus/minus to determine a player's defensive ability. You'd have to couple it with a whole bunch of other stats to see whether or not it actually indicates what you think it indicates. Because on its own, it doesn't tell you very much about a player's defensive ability.

That's the problem I have with it and how the original poster I quoted was using it. If someone with very little familiarity with hockey just started following the sport and asked "which defensemen are good defensively?", pointing them in the direction of NHL.com and telling them to sort by most blocked shots to answer their question won't give them anywhere near an accurate picture because they'd come away with the idea that a guy like Calvin de Haan is elite defensively, Tyler Myers is better defensively than McAvoy, Pelech and Slavin, and that Kris Russell is the greatest defensive defenseman in NHL history.

 

[Tusks Up]

Josi, Rielly, Doughty, Pietrangelo, and Burns are all ridiculously high.

How is the best season by a defenseman since prime Karlsson at #3 too high for Josi?

Man has he been disrespected a lot with the rising of Makar. Its not like there can only be one dman people rave about