What happened to defencemen born 1975-1982?
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Looking a little beyond big names (or lack thereof). Here's every Defenseman, listed by year and career GP, that played at least 350 NHL regular season games born between 1975-1982.
1975:
Bryan McCabe
Kimmo Timonen
Hal Gill
Brendan Witt
Francois Bouillon
Janne Niinimaa
Marek Malik
Andy Sutton
Jason Strudwick
Niclas Wallin
Nolan Pratt
Andreas Lilja
Anders Eriksson
Shane Hnidy
Stanislav Neckar
Jamie Rivers
Yannick Tremblay
Jamie Allison
1976:
Ed Jovanovski
Dan Boyle
Mattias Ohlund
Lubomir Visnovsky
Mathieu Dandenault
Filip Kuba
Bryce Salvador
Sheldon Souray
Kim Johnsson
Rhett Warener
Oleg Tverdovsky
Brett Clark
Brad Lukowich
Denis Gauthier
Wade Belak
Danil Markov
Radek Martinek
Deron Quint
Radoslav Suchy
Sean Brown
Pavel Trnka
Daniel Tjarnqvist
1977:
Zdeno Chara
Wade Redden
Pavel Kubina
Stephane Robidas
Willie Mitchell
Toni Lydman
Marek Zidlicky
Tom Poti
Jay McKee
Colin White
Mark Streit
Kyle McLaren
Joe Corvo
Brent Sopel
Mark Eaton
Bryan Berard
Aki-Petteri Berg
Brian Pothier
1978:
Chris Phillips
Derek Morris
Andrei Markov
Tomas Kaberle
Cory Sarich
Michal Rozsival
Rob Scuderi
Mike Weaver
Jan Hejda
Andrei Zyusin
Ben Clymer
1979:
Brian Campbell
Brad Stuart
Scott Hannan
Eric Brewer
Andrew Ference
Martin Skoula
Paul Mara
Henrik Tallinder
Nicholas Boynton
Steve Montador
Mike Commodore
Karel Rachunek
Mike Van Ryn
1980:
Robyn Regehr
Brooks Orpik
Francois Beauchemin
John-Michael Liles
Bryan Allen
Jordan Leopold
Vitaly Vishnevski
Dmitri Kalinin
Doug Murray
Greg Zanon
John Erskine
Marc-Andre Bergeron
Ossi Vaananen
Jim Vandermeer
David Tanabe
Sheldon Brookbank
1981:
Ron Hainsey
Niklas Kronwall
Barret Jackman
Paul Martin
Dennis Seidenberg
Johnny Oduya
Kevin Bieksa
Andrew Alberts
Garnet Exelby
Kurtis Foster
Randy Jones
Kurt Sauer
1982:
Dan Hamhuis
Nick Schultz
Andy Greene
Christian Ehrhoff
Zbynek Michalek
Anton Volchenkov
Deryk Engelland
Rotislav Klesla
Keith Ballard
Mike Komisarek
Shaone Morrison
Brett Lebda
Jay Harrison
So they'd be aged 25 (if born in 1982) through 32 (if born in 1975) in 2007-08, which I think would be the year that best captures the Defensemen prime of that extended group.
Norris Voting that year had 4 of the top 10 be just a bit older than the oldest in that group, Gonchar (1974), Pronger (1974), Rafalski (1973), Niedermayer (1973) so not necessarily dinosaurs. The winner Lidstrom (1970) was a lot older than one would expect. Phaneuf (1985) and Green (1985) were quite young, fueled by their points yet neither would be considered of particular renown by the time they were done. And then Chara, Campell and Markov were in range.
If my count is correct then I think 56 Defensemen out of the top 100 Defensemen in terms of ATOI were in those birth years. I'm not sure if there's a different year (probably immediately before or after) that would have a wider proportion, or how that would look (although I imagine not favorably for them) compared to other year.
1975:
Bryan McCabe
Kimmo Timonen
Hal Gill
Brendan Witt
Francois Bouillon
Janne Niinimaa
Marek Malik
Andy Sutton
Jason Strudwick
Niclas Wallin
Nolan Pratt
Andreas Lilja
Anders Eriksson
Shane Hnidy
Stanislav Neckar
Jamie Rivers
Yannick Tremblay
Jamie Allison
1976:
Ed Jovanovski
Dan Boyle
Mattias Ohlund
Lubomir Visnovsky
Mathieu Dandenault
Filip Kuba
Bryce Salvador
Sheldon Souray
Kim Johnsson
Rhett Warener
Oleg Tverdovsky
Brett Clark
Brad Lukowich
Denis Gauthier
Wade Belak
Danil Markov
Radek Martinek
Deron Quint
Radoslav Suchy
Sean Brown
Pavel Trnka
Daniel Tjarnqvist
1977:
Zdeno Chara
Wade Redden
Pavel Kubina
Stephane Robidas
Willie Mitchell
Toni Lydman
Marek Zidlicky
Tom Poti
Jay McKee
Colin White
Mark Streit
Kyle McLaren
Joe Corvo
Brent Sopel
Mark Eaton
Bryan Berard
Aki-Petteri Berg
Brian Pothier
1978:
Chris Phillips
Derek Morris
Andrei Markov
Tomas Kaberle
Cory Sarich
Michal Rozsival
Rob Scuderi
Mike Weaver
Jan Hejda
Andrei Zyusin
Ben Clymer
1979:
Brian Campbell
Brad Stuart
Scott Hannan
Eric Brewer
Andrew Ference
Martin Skoula
Paul Mara
Henrik Tallinder
Nicholas Boynton
Steve Montador
Mike Commodore
Karel Rachunek
Mike Van Ryn
1980:
Robyn Regehr
Brooks Orpik
Francois Beauchemin
John-Michael Liles
Bryan Allen
Jordan Leopold
Vitaly Vishnevski
Dmitri Kalinin
Doug Murray
Greg Zanon
John Erskine
Marc-Andre Bergeron
Ossi Vaananen
Jim Vandermeer
David Tanabe
Sheldon Brookbank
1981:
Ron Hainsey
Niklas Kronwall
Barret Jackman
Paul Martin
Dennis Seidenberg
Johnny Oduya
Kevin Bieksa
Andrew Alberts
Garnet Exelby
Kurtis Foster
Randy Jones
Kurt Sauer
1982:
Dan Hamhuis
Nick Schultz
Andy Greene
Christian Ehrhoff
Zbynek Michalek
Anton Volchenkov
Deryk Engelland
Rotislav Klesla
Keith Ballard
Mike Komisarek
Shaone Morrison
Brett Lebda
Jay Harrison
So they'd be aged 25 (if born in 1982) through 32 (if born in 1975) in 2007-08, which I think would be the year that best captures the Defensemen prime of that extended group.
Norris Voting that year had 4 of the top 10 be just a bit older than the oldest in that group, Gonchar (1974), Pronger (1974), Rafalski (1973), Niedermayer (1973) so not necessarily dinosaurs. The winner Lidstrom (1970) was a lot older than one would expect. Phaneuf (1985) and Green (1985) were quite young, fueled by their points yet neither would be considered of particular renown by the time they were done. And then Chara, Campell and Markov were in range.
If my count is correct then I think 56 Defensemen out of the top 100 Defensemen in terms of ATOI were in those birth years. I'm not sure if there's a different year (probably immediately before or after) that would have a wider proportion, or how that would look (although I imagine not favorably for them) compared to other year.
I think something went wrong with player development. Probably not enough focus on skills.
If we're looking at individual players, three of the best prospects lost some vision in early career eye injuries. Berard, Phillips, Ohlund. I don't know that any of them would have been an all-time great, but maybe an all situations #1 with a chance at Norris votes.
If we're looking at individual players, three of the best prospects lost some vision in early career eye injuries. Berard, Phillips, Ohlund. I don't know that any of them would have been an all-time great, but maybe an all situations #1 with a chance at Norris votes.
The Lindros effect.
From about 1992 to 2000 or 2001 size and toughness was overly emphasized at the draft and throughout North American leagues. It wasn’t exclusively to defensemen but I think is more noticeable there than forward or goalie.
Hey! This is my age cohort. Don't knock us.
Poor draft era in general, not just D-men. But I think, as someone already commented (13 years ago!), it might have something
to do with the broadening of other entertainments for kids, besides sports. Mine is the first generation that grew up with computers at school and in the home, and the Internet emerged in our teens.
And another point is that I feel mine was the last hockey cohort (in North America, anyway) to learn the game "old school". Basically, Don Cherry hockey still dominated coaching and the minor ranks when I was a kid. But the game was starting to move in a different direction when we kids became pro-aged.
Poor draft era in general, not just D-men. But I think, as someone already commented (13 years ago!), it might have something
to do with the broadening of other entertainments for kids, besides sports. Mine is the first generation that grew up with computers at school and in the home, and the Internet emerged in our teens.
And another point is that I feel mine was the last hockey cohort (in North America, anyway) to learn the game "old school". Basically, Don Cherry hockey still dominated coaching and the minor ranks when I was a kid. But the game was starting to move in a different direction when we kids became pro-aged.
Its pretty simple
For defencemen born in this age range, somewhere between 4-12 years into their career, the definition of playing defence changed from "why didnt you interfere with him?", to "why did you interfere with him?".
For defencemen born in this age range, somewhere between 4-12 years into their career, the definition of playing defence changed from "why didnt you interfere with him?", to "why did you interfere with him?".
