Welcome to My Ted Talk!
Adam Fox has started to become the most underrated player in the NHL.
In the past few months we've seen NHL Network and ESPN rank the best defensemen in the NHL and he has landed at 8 for NHL Network and 7 for ESPN.
Makar, Hughes, Josi, Hedman, Heiskanen, and Dahlin all were ahead of him for ESPN, while the first 5 and also McAvoy and Forsling were ahead of him for NHL Network. TSN was the most generous to Fox and still had him only listed 4th (Makar, Hughes, and Josi).
That's an average between these three lists of 6.33. If you believe these publications, there are on average at least 6 and maybe 7 better defensemen in the NHL than Adam Fox.
Yet, Fox in the last four seasons (since his second NHL season and his first season he only finished a disappointing 4th in the Calder) has not finished below 5th in the Norris voting (4, 2, 5, 1). How could a player who has not finished below 5th for best defenseman in the NHL the last four years, along with having a Norris win in that stretch, not be a top 5 defenseman in the NHL?
Fox is not a declining player either. He is only 26. Dahlin, Heiskanen, and Forsling have never finished above Fox in the Norris voting, while McAvoy has only done it once. At the same time, Makar, Hughes, Josi, and Hedman have the same exact number of Norris trophies as Fox. How they are widely viewed ahead of him (especially those other than Makar) is hard to believe.
Fox drives play on both ends of the ice. He puts up some of the best advanced stats in the league yearly offensively and defensively. He plays all situations, tough minutes, he's usually one of the leading scorers amongst defensemen in the league, he's performed well in the playoffs in his career, and has arguably been the best player on one of the best teams in the league the last 5 years.
Even still, it has become an almost unanimous talking point that Fox is not the best player on his own team. It has become almost incessant to say Igor Shestyorkin is the Rangers best player. I am as big of a Shestyorkin fan as anyone, but I think it would be unfair to Fox to claim Shestyorkin is in another league from Fox. At most, you could say Shestyorkin has a slight edge, but over time I think there have been plenty of long stretches where Fox has been the better player and the overall picture could lean Fox's direction (same number of major award wins, more consistent in the regular season, plays more games). It really should be a position comparison of whether you take the defenseman or goaltender, but it seems like almost everyone just wants to hand this title to the goaltender without any thought.
Fox isn't the biggest or best skater. I'll grant you that. There are reasons why one might prefer to watch some of these other defensemen. And playoffs are the highest stakes time and there's almost no one better in hockey during that time than Shestyorkin. Yet, Fox's impact year in, year out has started to become overshadowed by shinier objects, even though he's only 26, in the prime of his career, and one of the most decorated defensemen of his era.
