Who was the best defenseman of the 2010s?

[snu22fint]

What value is there in stating "player X is the best defenseman" if player X isn't good defensively?

You dont have to be good defensively to be the best player in the world. Defenseman is just a label. Since we call the other players forwards we might as well call defenders backwards.

In theory, a player can have absolut zero defensive abilities an still be the best player.

 

[Ben White]

Sorry, thats not true. Karlsson is the best player, Parayko is the best Defensman.

There’s nothing that says a “defenseman” need to play defence to begin with. It’s the term for a position in hockey not a deployment. If forwards were called “offensemen” would they only be deployed to play offence? I’m not saying that it’s not important for a Dman to play defence (at least until someone comes up with a winning system playing 1-1-3 with a super defensive centre or something like that) just that it’s not a necessity cause of how the position is worded.

 

[snu22fint]

There’s nothing that says a “defenseman” need to play defence to begin with. It’s the term for a position in hockey not a deployment. If forwards were called “offensemen” would they only be deployed to play offence? I’m not saying that it’s not important for a Dman to play defence (at least until someone comes up with a winning system playing 1-1-3 with a super defensive centre or something like that) just that it’s not a necessity cause of how the position is worded.

This was a joke. Read the post just before yours and you will see that I have the same stance as you.

 

[super6646]

1. Skjei
2. Parayko
3-5. Who gives a f***

 

[Ben White]

This was a joke. Read the post just before yours and you will see that I have the same stance as you.

Yeah I pretty much quoted you word by word

 

[snu22fint]

Yeah I pretty much quoted you word by word

It's hard sometimes to keep track of everything that has been said.

I just had the longest conversation about basically nothing because some dude pretended to not understand a basic sentence, and then it turns out that he defines a defensman as someone with an on average better defence than Karlsson.

I just checked some stats:

DD's expected goals for differential at even strength is +35 in 1044 games vs EK +25 in 868 games. Looking at goals against vs goals for during their careers Its also pretty similar if you adjust for the amount of games played etc.

DD's +- looked way better than Karlsson during the 10's. But then once LAK started to suck, DD went -64 in 3 seasons between 18-21, which is way worse than Karlssons entire time in Ottawa. What happened there? I didn't pay much attention to LAK during those years. Was he injured? Or could it be that its way easier to look good defensively on a good team? Nah, thats too logical.

Saying that one of those players qualifies as a defenseman has nothing to do with how good they actually are. It's just moving the goal post imo.

Enough about that.

 

[dmj616]

I'm not sure I can vote in any Karlsson polls. I've mainly only watched him against the Blues in his career, and he's often times the worst player on the ice. I can't recall a single above average defensive play I've witnessed from him.

Just went to check his career stats against the Blues, -17 career against the Blues in just 24 games. Not surprising. I'm sure it's just a coincidence and a small sample size.