Top 10 Defensemen

[Divine]

For some reason these threads always turn into best offensive defencemen.

If you had a team of just shutdown D, I'm not sure if it would be any worse than a team full of strictly offensive d-men. Both are equally important.

 

[Doom Bot]

For some reason these threads always turn into best offensive defencemen.

If you had a team of just shutdown D, I'm not sure if it would be any worse than a team full of strictly offensive d-men. Both are equally important.

Montreal's finals run was pretty close to that.

 

[FinlandPanther]

McAvoy sucks and should be nowhere near this list.

 

[amnesiac]

For some reason these threads always turn into best offensive defencemen.

If you had a team of just shutdown D, I'm not sure if it would be any worse than a team full of strictly offensive d-men. Both are equally important.

Offensive Dmen usually (depending who) are more valuable to a team's success. To me its the system that will ultimately make all the difference in the end.

I mean, a smart offensive Dman does a lot more than just get points. Most are also great at: puck possession, stick handling, skating out of the zone with the puck, making great first passes, zone entries and making the right decision (dump or pass).

Stay at home Dmen are more about hits in the corner, grinding, and blocked shots, which is definitely something positive, but if you cant properly get the puck out on a regular basis, thats a problem.

Hockey IQ is an individual attribute on its own which ultimately determines how good of a Dman you are.

 

[Divine]

Offensive Dmen usually (depending who) are more valuable to a team's success. To me its the system that will ultimately make all the difference in the end... an offensive Dman does a lot more than just get points. Most are also great at: puck possession, stick handling, skating out of the zone with the puck, making great first passes, zone entries and making the right decision (dump or pass).

Stay at home Dmen are more about hits in the corner, grinding, and blocked shots, which is definitely something positive, but if you cant properly get the puck out on a regular basis, thats a problem.

Hockey IQ is an individual attribute on its own which ultimately determines how good of a Dman you are.

I disagree. In my opinion, the belief that offensive defensivemen contribute more is because their impact can be measured. When a player makes a nice breakout pass that leads to a goal, it shows up on his stat sheet. You can visually correlate that breakout pass to the goal.

When a player clears a dump in that would lead to a goal, it doesn't show up on the stat sheet. As the goal never occurred, people ignore the possibility of the goal occuring and therefore it becomes a routine play rather than an impactful play such as the pass that leads to a goal. The defensemen basically get no credit for all the goals they prevent. It's not as if we have a crystal ball and could see all the goals that were prevented that seemed like an uneventful play at the time.

An ideal would obviously be a mix of the two, but I'm not convinced that if we were to isolate one or the other that any would be better. A defensive defenceman basically only gets credit when he stops an obvious goal, like he blocks a puck that was going into an empty net on a rebound. Most of their plays, breaking up passes, stopping 2 on 1's, etc. are easily forgotten and there's basically no record of them after the game.

 

[norrisnick]

Offensive Dmen usually (depending who) are more valuable to a team's success. To me its the system that will ultimately make all the difference in the end.

I mean, a smart offensive Dman does a lot more than just get points. Most are also great at: puck possession, stick handling, skating out of the zone with the puck, making great first passes, zone entries and making the right decision (dump or pass).

Stay at home Dmen are more about hits in the corner, grinding, and blocked shots, which is definitely something positive, but if you cant properly get the puck out on a regular basis, thats a problem.

Hockey IQ is an individual attribute on its own which ultimately determines how good of a Dman you are.

That just means they aren't a good defensive defenseman. No one is talking about those.

 

[amnesiac]

That just means they aren't a good defensive defenseman. No one is talking about those.

my point is youre more likely to get that from "stay at home Dmen" than "offensive Dmen"

I wouldnt want 6 Chris Tanevs on my team, thats for sure. If youre talking about a Jacob Slavin then fine, but youre not going to find many of those.

 

[Regal]

I disagree. In my opinion, the belief that offensive defensivemen contribute more is because their impact can be measured. When a player makes a nice breakout pass that leads to a goal, it shows up on his stat sheet. You can visually correlate that breakout pass to the goal.

When a player clears a dump in that would lead to a goal, it doesn't show up on the stat sheet. As the goal never occurred, people ignore the possibility of the goal occuring and therefore it becomes a routine play rather than an impactful play such as the pass that leads to a goal. The defensemen basically get no credit for all the goals they prevent. It's not as if we have a crystal ball and could see all the goals that were prevented that seemed like an uneventful play at the time.

An ideal would obviously be a mix of the two, but I'm not convinced that if we were to isolate one or the other that any would be better. A defensive defenceman basically only gets credit when he stops an obvious goal, like he blocks a puck that was going into an empty net on a rebound. Most of their plays, breaking up passes, stopping 2 on 1's, etc. are easily forgotten and there's basically no record of them after the game.

I think it’s one of those things where often there’s too much focus on points rather than transition play. To me that’s far more important than play in the offensive zone. Defensemen like Slavin, who are great defensively who also transition the puck well are hugely valuable even if they don’t have a lot of offensive creativity and I’d take that over a lot of good offensive defensemen who also transition the puck well but who are mediocre in their own zone any day (say Sergachev), because if you have good enough forwards you should still have enough offense if you’re limiting your chances against and getting the puck up the ice.

my point is youre more likely to get that from "stay at home Dmen" than "offensive Dmen"

I wouldnt want 6 Chris Tanevs on my team, thats for sure. If youre talking about a Jacob Slavin then fine, but youre not going to find many of those.

Tanev is a very good transition player. 6 Tanev’s would be an elite defense 5v5. You just might have to play 5 forwards on the PP

 

[norrisnick]

my point is youre more likely to get that from "stay at home Dmen" than "offensive Dmen"

I wouldnt want 6 Chris Tanevs on my team, thats for sure. If youre talking about a Jacob Slavin then fine, but youre not going to find many of those.

I'd prefer 6 Tanevs to 6 Ghosts or Barries...

 

[Nicko999]

I'd prefer 6 Tanevs to 6 Ghosts or Barries...

You aren't scoring any goals with 6 Tanevs because your transition will non existent. With 6 Barries (assuming it's Barrie from a couple of seasons ago), you will score a lot of goals and obviously give up a lot as well but at least you have a higher likelihood of winning.

 

[norrisnick]

You aren't scoring any goals with 6 Tanevs because your transition will non existent. With 6 Barries (assuming it's Barrie from a couple of seasons ago), you will score a lot of goals and obviously give up a lot as well but at least you have a higher likelihood of winning.

Not if you're a net negative, no. Goals only mean wins if you don't give up more than you score.

 

[Breakers]

You aren't scoring any goals with 6 Tanevs because your transition will non existent. With 6 Barries (assuming it's Barrie from a couple of seasons ago), you will score a lot of goals and obviously give up a lot as well but at least you have a higher likelihood of winning.

Umm tanev's zone exits are flawless there bud,
low icings
high percentage of controlled exits both by passing and skating

 

[nashnaidoo]

Is it fair to say that a player's value to the team is measured by how much they are paid? I appreciate there will be outliers (rookie contracts etc), but at the time of signing is it a good measure? That would be how I would want to determine whether defensive defensemen or offensive d have more value to a team.

 

[amnesiac]

I'd prefer 6 Tanevs to 6 Ghosts or Barries...

Barrie is barely an NHLer… Would you rather 6 Shea Theodores or 6 Mikey Andersons?

 

[Breakers]

I was getting roasted by even Dallas fans for pointing out how good thomas harley is

ya'll still sleeping on this man, do it at your own risk

 

[norrisnick]

Barrie is barely an NHLer… Would you rather 6 Shea Theodores or 6 Mikey Andersons?

Now you're just using a name generator. Wtf kind of adult goes by Mikey?

 

[Ratsreign]

For some reason these threads always turn into best offensive defencemen.

If you had a team of just shutdown D, I'm not sure if it would be any worse than a team full of strictly offensive d-men. Both are equally important.

Need 3 of each.

 

[Regal]

You aren't scoring any goals with 6 Tanevs because your transition will non existent. With 6 Barries (assuming it's Barrie from a couple of seasons ago), you will score a lot of goals and obviously give up a lot as well but at least you have a higher likelihood of winning.

I don’t know why people think Tanev isn’t good in transition

 

[Divine]

You aren't scoring any goals with 6 Tanevs because your transition will non existent. With 6 Barries (assuming it's Barrie from a couple of seasons ago), you will score a lot of goals and obviously give up a lot as well but at least you have a higher likelihood of winning.

Forwards can still score goals. You can win every game 1-0 or 2-1.

You’ll likely score less goals than you would with offensive defencemen, but you’ll also give up less goals.

 

[Coffee]

Try to be a little serious

You haven’t said one good thing about Montreal since like 2019

 

[a mangy Meowth]

You haven’t said one good thing about Montreal since like 2019

Calling Hutson a top 10 dman is not where I'm about to start

 

[Coffee]

Calling Hutson a top 10 dman is not where I'm about to start

Fair enough

 

[SallyBalls]

Hutson well and truly entrenched in the top 10 now. Probably even top 5

 

[newfy]

No specific order:

Cale Makar
Moritz Seider
Quinn Hughes
Victor Hedman
Gustav Forsling
Miro Heiskanen
Rasmus Dahlin
Adam Fox
Josh Morrissey
Zach Werenski

My favorite defenseman to watch: Moritz Seider

I can get behind this exact list of ten guys, and if I were making my own I'm not sure it would be different. I may forget to put Forsling because he's hugely underrated but I can get behind him on a top 10 list. I'm definitely taking him over a Karlsson or Bouchard who are top 10 scorers.

I'm also glad to see that Seider is getting some deserved praise after carrying corpses around, playing generational hardest minutes in the league the last couple years. He also happens to be one of the most "throwback" type D the league has seen in a while. Top 10 in hits, top 6 in blocked shots and top 20 in points

 

[57special]

Barrie is barely an NHLer… Would you rather 6 Shea Theodores or 6 Mikey Andersons?

6 Andersons because I'd have 20M more in cap space to add Kaprizov and Barkov.

Theodore makes almost twice as much as Anderson. Cap space matters.