Norris Trophy Power Rankings: Rielly on top with gaudy offensive numbers
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JoeThorntonsRooster
Don’t say eye test when you mean points
Brent Burns would get exposed if he played heavy defensive minutes? You're real certain of that, aren't you? What if I told you that he once played heavy defensive minutes, and he f***ing crushed them?
| Team | CF% | HDCF% | GF% | OZFO% |
| 07-08 Wild with Burns | 50.20% | 49.45% | 55.34% | 42.50% |
| 07-08 Wild without Burns | 48.00% | 40.70% | 45.61% | 43.25% |
| 10-11 Wild with Burns | 48.04% | 53.32% | 48.33% | 42.57% |
| 10-11 Wild without Burns | 43.48% | 39.89% | 43.87% | 44.14% |
In his two best seasons in Minnesota, Burns played heavy defensive minutes - heavier than Giordano this year, or Letang, or Rielly, or your precious Weber whose name doesn't belong in this thread. And he f***ing crushed them. Now, his numbers with the Wild aren't relevant to whether or not he is worthy of winning this season's Norris Trophy, but I felt it would be beneficial to both of us if I blatantly disproved your suggestion that Burns would get exposed if he played heavy defensive minutes. Because he has previously played heavy defensive minutes and did fantastic.
When he got to San Jose, it was clear right away that Burns wasn't going to be a shutdown guy - that was Marc-Edouard Vlasic's role. That's not a knock on Burns because for a large majority of Burns' tenure here, Vlasic has been a better defensive defenseman than any of the other guys mentioned in this thread. In that first season, Burns was tried on a shutdown pair with Vlasic, and he received somewhat heavy defensive deployment.
| Team | CF% | GF% | HDCF% | OZFO% |
| 11-12 Sharks with Burns/Vlasic | 56.09% | 51.85% | 57.86% | 48.92% |
| 11-12 Sharks without Burns or Vlasic | 50.60% | 46.32% | 54.00% | 50.06% |
The pairing was successful, but both defensemen were generally a bit more successful in the goal column when they were separated. That's not because Burns is some terrible two-way defenseman, but because Vlasic generally struggles in a role where his pairing is expected to provide a lot of offense; that's why Vlasic has also struggled with Erik Karlsson. But ultimately, these numbers were still very strong and another key example of a time where Burns did get heavier defensive minutes and still did very well. But when Burns returned to defense in 14-15, it was clear that both he and Vlasic were better off if they were separated and they played in two different roles. Now, Burns is on his way to his 3rd season as a Norris finalist, so why change what works?
San Jose fans aren't telling you that their team has no offensive weapons. What we're telling you is that we have no offensive superstars - outside of Burns (and Karlsson who hasn't played that way for the entirety of this season). All of those forwards you just mentioned are all damn good players and the Sharks forward unit as a whole is in the top half of the NHL due to their depth, but those guys are not high end offensive players.
It's really simple stuff and I don't know how you're getting it. Burns is the Sharks' best offensive player. He isn't playing with Kessel/Malkin/Crosby, or Gaudreau/Monahan/Lindholm, or Marner/Tavares/Matthews like the other 3 guys mentioned in this thread are. Because of that, Burns is going to be relied on to create more offense. Because Burns is relied upon to create offense, he's going to get more offensive zone face-offs than these guys are.
Maybe this will help explain things to you:
| Player | Points | Team Leading Forward's Points | % of Team Leading Forward | 3rd Place Forward's Points | % of 3rd Place Forward |
| Burns | 68 | 56 | 121% | 55 | 124% |
| Rielly | 58 | 69 | 84% | 55 | 105% |
| Giordano | 58 | 79 | 73% | 67 | 87% |
| Letang | 52 | 73 | 71% | 62 | 84% |
In terms of pure points, Burns blows his 1st place and 3rd teammates out of the water. Meanwhile, Giordano and Letang are both inferior to their 3rd place teammate, while Rielly is only ahead of Matthews because Matthews has missed 14 games with injury. And that is exactly why he gets so many offensive zone starts; because he is their best offensive player. That's why I've compared his offensive zone starts to other elite offensive players who are near the top of the league in assists - because these guys get offensive deployment. It's not generally quite as offensively tilted as Burns, because these guys don't have a Vlasic level shutdown player playing the same position as them. If the Flames had Patrice Bergeron on their 2nd line, Johnny Gaudreau would get like 70% offensive zone starts as well.
Again, I don't even know why you mentioned Weber. He's played 37 games this season and his ESP/60 is 1.69 (a career high number by far that he won't sustain). Burns has actually played the entire season and his ESP/60 is 1.96. I'm not sure what you mean by a better shot, but Burns scored 56 goals in two seasons, so I can't imagine you're talking about their shooting abilities. That was just a weird thing to mention all around.
So, in summary:
1. Burns has previously played heavy defensive minutes, and he's done very well in them. The notion that he would get exposed with heavy defensive minutes has been proven false.
2. Burns plays heavy offensive minutes because he is in a unique position where he is his team's best offensive player and he is not his team's best defensive player. His deployment is reflective of that. That does not mean he can not still be the "defense player who demonstrates throughout the season the greatest all-round ability in the position".
3. Please don't mention Shea Weber again in this thread.
I'm not even sure Reilly should be on the 2nd all star team at this point, let alone a winner of the Norris. I think Letang and Josi are having better seasons.
You spent an awful long time writing a novel about 2 seasons Burns had 10 years ago. Problem is you talk about HDCF% which is the % of high danger chances FOR and against. If you wanted to make a point about his defensive play you should have talked about his HDCA numbers. Talking about advanced stats doesn't make you smart when they're not relevant to the point you're trying to make. The points you bring up afterwards are related to his offensive prowess.. which i'm not disputing.
And you don't need to go all the way back to 10 years ago if you wanna talk about his defensive advanced stats, why not just use his numbers from recent seasons? Neither his advanced stats nor his usage make him a passable defensive player. That said, he's an offensive powerhouse:
(17-18)
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JoeThorntonsRooster
Don’t say eye test when you mean points
I'm just glad you read it.
The reason that I use the old seasons is because it was before Burns joined San Jose and he wasn't even as good as he was today. Once he joined San Jose, Vlasic was always going to be the shutdown guy. In the Olympics, Canada's shutdown pairing has been Vlasic-Doughty; not a pairing with Shea Weber or Duncan Keith on it. That is how good Vlasic is. (Or, was in his prime. And is still treated today by the coach as if he is.) But it's worth mentioning that Burns has played tough minutes before and crushed them, because it completely disproves the idea that he would get exposed in tougher minutes. He has taken tougher minutes and it's never happened.
The reason I use percentage stats instead of against per 60 is because it gives us an idea of everything that happened when he took that tougher deployment. Maybe he was a slight drain on his team's defense, but he boosted their offense to no end. Or maybe vice versa. Against per 60 only gives us half of that story so I wanted to give the full story, since percentage is what really matters. Percentages are most relevant to the point at hand when trying to entirely assess his performance in this role.
But if you really want to, let's look at just his suppression stats in situations where he was deployed more defensively...
| Team | CA/60 | GA/60 | HDCA/60 | OZFO% |
| 07-08 Wild with Burns | 50.76 | 2.1 | 8.35 | 42.50% |
| 07-08 Wild without Burns | 51.84 | 2.36 | 8.58 | 43.25% |
| 10-11 Wild with Burns | 55.49 | 2.57 | 7.87 | 42.57% |
| 10-11 Wild without Burns | 58.15 | 2.19 | 10.64 | 44.14% |
| 11-12 Sharks with Burns/Vlasic | 52.07 | 1.93 | 8.78 | 48.92% |
| 11-12 Sharks without Burns or Vlasic | 53.34 | 2.12 | 8.61 | 50.06% |
| 14-15 Sharks with Burns/Vlasic | 55.77 | 2.4 | 9.62 | 48.05% |
| 14-15 Sharks without Burns or Vlasic | 55.97 | 2.23 | 9.82 | 50.14% |
Wow, shocker, he did a fine job of purely suppressing shots, goals, and high danger chances as well. Generally did better than his team without him at all 3 of them. And if you want another example of Burns doing very well in a defensive role, here are this season's numbers as a penalty killer:
| Team | TOI | CA/60 | GA/60 | HDCA/60 | OZFO% |
| Sharks with Burns | 122:27 | 81.83 | 5.88 | 28.91 | 6.67% |
| Sharks without Burns | 171:07 | 91.17 | 7.71 | 23.49 | 6.18% |
Wow, shocker. Burns plays over 40% of the Sharks' minutes on the PK and he does a fantastic job of suppressing goals and shot attempts. Does poorly at suppressing high danger chances, but I tend to trust the goals most in special teams situations because goals are the objective of the game and because teams tend to allow "high danger chances" that aren't dangerous a lot on the PK. Burns also more than doubles his team's GF/60 on the PK from 1.05 to a respectable 2.45 which is actually higher than the 5V5 GF/60 of 13 different teams. I know this argument here is all about defense, but I felt that was worth mentioning.
Again, it's really not rocket science dude. He has played in more defensive roles and he's done very well in them. Right now, the role he is in, at even strength he's asked to create a lot of offense and sometimes he gives up some offense as well. This isn't different from a lot of other elite offensive players in the league - the difference is that Burns just does it from the defense position. That doesn't disqualify Burns from being the best all round player at the defense position.
So 11-12/14-15, SJ had the same HDCA60 with Burns and Vlasic (who was a premier defensive dman in the NHL).. and that's supposed to be a good thing? Vlasic was a top defensive dman in the NHL, breaking even with his team's HDCA60 is a bad thing for him. So basically, Burns had to play with Vlasic just so he could break even w/ his teams HDCA? Sorry but that's not a good thing. His team got crushed in both goals against and high danger chances against on the PK when he was on the ice as opposed to off, that's a good thing? I also dislike how you present your stats, you cherry pick numbers and there's no context. I can look up advanced stats myself, i don't need you to do that for me.
Now, in regards to his HDCA numbers, heres his numbers from the past few seasons. First off, source.. just in case anyone wants to look up the numbers themselves: Player Season Totals - Natural Stat Trick (since 2016-2017). You can look up his numbers from other seasons too, he's always a league worse HDCA player in them as well. I decided to use data from more recent years.
Now here's the kicker, he's a league worse HDCA player even when he's getting soft offensive minutes, look at his o-zone starts. On top of that SJ was a strong team in those years and they have good puck possession numbers.
Any retort for the GAR numbers i presented? His 5v5 ES defensive numbers are laughable, among the worst in the league. GAR ES defensive stats = shot supression (which factors in shot quality/competition/teammates). That's in regards to his shot suppression numbers (source: reposting stats blow, GAR info: Advanced Stats 102 - What is GAR?).
So we've established that he's a league worse HDCA and GAR (in terms of 5v5 defensive play, which is shot supression) player. Now, please tell me how these numbers make him an adequate defensive player? His defensive analytics are among the league worst in several categories, please stop selling me snake oil.
Also, in the future don't present me w/ HDCF% numbers and pass it off as a "defensive stat", you're presenting false information just to create a false narrative to support your argument. It would work on someone who doesn't know much about advanced stats.. but that's playing dirty
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When you are as good as Burns is offensively does it really matter if he is not elite defensively. Aslong as he is not a liability defensively which he is not. He doesn't have to be top 5 defensively to win the norris when he is crushing everyone else offensively. It's possible he could end up with more assists than any other Dman has points. Right now he has 56 assists, Rielly and Giordano have 58 points.
Tkachuky
Registered User
A 10 point point difference is a lot smaller than the defensive gap between Gio and Burns. Especially considering they will likely have 70-80 point seasons.
Sure Burns could have a much larger point lead. Or the opposite could happen.
If the season ended today, I stick by my first point.
JoeThorntonsRooster
Don’t say eye test when you mean points
So 11-12/14-15, SJ had the same HDCA60 with Burns and Vlasic (who was a premier defensive dman in the NHL).. and that's supposed to be a good thing? Vlasic was a top defensive dman in the NHL, breaking even with his team's HDCA60 is a bad thing for him. So basically, Burns had to play with Vlasic just so he could break even w/ his teams HDCA? Sorry but that's not a good thing. His team got crushed in both goals against and high danger chances against on the PK when he was on the ice as opposed to off, that's a good thing? I also dislike how you present your stats, you cherry pick numbers and there's no context. I can look up advanced stats myself, i don't need you to do that for me.
Now, in regards to his HDCA numbers, heres his numbers from the past few seasons. First off, source.. just in case anyone wants to look up the numbers themselves: Player Season Totals - Natural Stat Trick (since 2016-2017). You can look up his numbers from other seasons too, he's always a league worse HDCA player in them as well. I decided to use data from more recent years.
Now here's the kicker, he's a league worse HDCA player even when he's getting soft offensive minutes, look at his o-zone starts. On top of that SJ was a strong team in those years and they have good puck possession numbers.
Any retort for the GAR numbers i presented? His 5v5 ES defensive numbers are laughable, among the worst in the league. GAR ES defensive stats = shot supression (which factors in shot quality/competition/teammates). That's in regards to his shot suppression numbers (source: reposting stats blow, GAR info: Advanced Stats 102 - What is GAR?).
So we've established that he's a league worse HDCA and GAR (in terms of 5v5 defensive play, which is shot supression) player. Now, please tell me how these numbers make him an adequate defensive player? His defensive analytics are among the league worst in several categories, please stop selling me snake oil.
Also, in the future don't present me w/ HDCF% numbers and pass it off as a "defensive stat", you're presenting false information just to create a false narrative to support your argument. It would work on someone who doesn't know much about advanced stats.. but that's playing dirty
You think I'm the one cherry picking stats and selling snake oil? Dude, you're cherry picking aggregate HDCA in order to assess the defensive abilities of a defenseman who is 3rd in the NHL in 5V5 TOI over that time frame. Yeah, no shit Burns gives up a ton of high danger chances; he plays a ton of minutes. Why don't you look at per 60 stats, where he's not even in the top-90 among skaters with 1000 TOI? And you want to talk about snake oil? Those GAR charts are a joke and the definition of snake oil. I remember last off-season, Blues fans telling me their center depth was near the NHL's best due to those GAR charts...but the same charts said that Detroit had better center depth than Tampa and Washington. Cool idea but they're nowhere near well developed enough to mean anything. I'm not going to even address what they say any further than that because they're a joke.
On top of that, I have to feel like you're cherry picking by using high danger chances and ignoring Corsi. They're both worth mentioning, but Corsi is the stat with higher predictive power of goals. You're probably ignoring it because it's also the one where Burns does a lot better. In your time frame of 16-17 to now, Burns is middle of the pack at 316th out of 625 skaters in CA/60. If you look at just this season, he has the 6th lowest CA/60 with 52.28 out of 60 skaters with 1000 TOI and the 39th lowest HDCA/60 among the same 60. So, he's clearly not great at suppressing high danger chances, but he is great at suppressing shot attempts (which have a stronger correlation with goals), and he's also not anywhere near league worst at suppressing high danger chances either.
You must have misread on the PK. The team allows 5.88 goals per 60 with him on the ice and 7.71 goals per 60 without him. They did get crushed in high danger chances, but as I mentioned, I take high danger chances on the PK with a large grain of salt if they don't translate to goals. A lot of teams build a PK system that allows shots that qualify as "high danger chances" but aren't really all that dangerous. And because he suppresses shot attempts and goals very well, I'll trust those. Regarding his numbers with Vlasic, I never said those were some top notch defensive numbers. They aren't, but they show yet another example of when he was given this "heavy defensive usage", and was not "exposed". That's all I'm trying to say. And right now, if San Jose tried to force him into tough defensive minutes next to somebody like Dillon, they would do very well. Right now, he is encouraged to create his team's offense, and that leads to him taking more risks at both ends of the ice. Which is why his high danger and goal suppression stats aren't elite. He is a risky, high event player who makes some defensive errors. If he were placed into a more defensive role and told to turn back those risks, he would do very well - as we have seen in previous seasons where he was put into that role at 5V5, and as we have seen on the PK this season.
And in addition to that, it's probably not you cherry picking, but I wouldn't bother including 2017-2018 in this discussion since that is a season where I actually would agree that Burns was very poor defensively for most of it. But even when you do look at those 3 seasons combined, he's really not that bad defensively, and he's also not elite. He's passable. He's solid. He has some games where he controls the ice and doesn't allow much, and some games where he makes one or two egregious errors that lead to goals against.
But if you look at the percentage stats, his super elite offense clearly outweighs his lack of elite defense. And that's all we're saying. He is adequate enough defensively to the point where, when you juxtaposition that with his elite offense, he has a strong case for being the defense player who demonstrates the greatest all around ability at the position.
Sure, Burns could have a much larger point lead. Or the opposite could happen.
But Burns has an individual shooting percentage that is 1.8% below his career average, and a 5V5 oiSH% that is only 0.34% above his career best full season at defense. Giordano has an individual shooting percentage that is 0.4% above his career average, and a 5V5 oiSH% that is 1.81% above his career best full season at defense. (Both have had a higher oiSH%, but Burns' was in 69 games at forward and Gio in 47 games at D.) Statistically speaking, Giordano is the guy who is producing out of his depth, and more likely to regress.
On top of that, as I've mentioned above; "A 10 point difference" doesn't accurately quantify the actual difference in offensive performance. Burns is 1st on his team with a 12 point lead on 2nd place, while Giordano is 4th on his team and 21 points behind 1st place.
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