He has improved since the start of the season. He's in position a lot more and he doesn't blow the zone before the Sharks have won possession. His breakouts are better. But that just takes him from "worst defensive player in the NHL" to "maybe not the worst defensive player in the NHL". He's really smart and tries, but until he's strong and quick enough to actually pressure puck-carriers he's not going to be approaching "sound defensively".
I don't have a lot of faith that Muldowney and Laubach will have NHL impacts. Is this purely a scoring-based model, or a micro-stat tracking model? What kind of data set is it using?
What exactly are you thinking these cards are claiming? They're just ranking players within their leagues. Laubach is ranked #124 out of 900-something NCAA forwards. Basically equivalent to saying he's nothing. And saying a player is good in their league right now (ie Lund or Muldowney) is not equivalent to saying they'll be good NHL players.
I don't disagree but I'm almost at the point where I'd call him situationally competent cuz the neutral zone pickoffs are starting to show up too.
