Best team defense

[PhillyBluesFan]

1990-present only

I would say the 03 Devils are a pretty solid #1 but who is #2?

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[Dennis Bonvie]

1990-present only

I would say the 03 Devils are a pretty solid #1 but who is #2?

04 Devils.

 

[Nalens Oga]

How about the LA Kings playoff team? That was some tight suffocating defence, the Canucks and the Devils at the end of the 4th series were the only teams to really challenge Quick.

Cgy-TB both had tight defenses (imo it was more of a case of weak offense and dead puck hockey at its peak). Ducks in 07 were underrated.

 

[PhillyBluesFan]

04 Devils.

Amazing in the regular season but lacked Stevens and Daneyko's leadership thats why they got beat so bad by Philly

 

[vadim sharifijanov]

1990-present only

I would say the 03 Devils are a pretty solid #1 but who is #2?

'99 stars. derian hatcher was their leader, two of the greatest shotblockers i've seen in matvichuk and ludwig. zubov and sydor on the PP. and shawn chambers, a pretty forgotten guy but he was a pretty useful role player on a number of winning bluelines.

carbonneau, lehtinen, modano... keaner... skrudland... nieuwendyk winning tough draws... grinders like dave reid and grant marshall, and all with ken hitchcock and doug jarvis behind the bench.

two selke winners up front and another on the bench. ridiculous.

 

[livewell68]

I think there are a few candidates here.

Any of the mid to late 90's Red Wings teams.

The 1999 Stars team.

Any of the mid to late 90's Devils teams.

The 1996 Avalanche team.

The 2000 Blues team in the regular season of course.

 

[kmad]

'03 Wild are a dark horse

 

[newf]

1990-present only

I would say the 03 Devils are a pretty solid #1 but who is #2?

94 rangers?

leetch beukeboom
zubov lowe

very solid top four. plus lidster, karpotsev ... even james patrick for a chunk of the season

 

[Hammer Time]

Pick any Stanley Cup winner in the last 15 years, not counting '04, '06, and '09. They all had impressive team defences.

 

[TheDevilMadeMe]

'99 stars. derian hatcher was their leader, two of the greatest shotblockers i've seen in matvichuk and ludwig. zubov and sydor on the PP. and shawn chambers, a pretty forgotten guy but he was a pretty useful role player on a number of winning bluelines.

carbonneau, lehtinen, modano... keaner... skrudland... nieuwendyk winning tough draws... grinders like dave reid and grant marshall, and all with ken hitchcock and doug jarvis behind the bench.

two selke winners up front and another on the bench. ridiculous.

Dallas would be my pick as well.

2003-04 Devils played Pat Burns hockey with lots of defensively responsible forwards, but their blueline past Niedermayer was nothing special once Stevens was forced to sit out.

The 1997 Wings with Fetisov-Konstantinov and Lidstrom-Murphy are up there, but in terms of pure team defense, I would pick the Lemaire-era Devils and Hitchcock-era stars over them. Detroit was defense-first, but was more balanced.

 

[vadim sharifijanov]

Dallas would be my pick as well.

2003-04 Devils played Pat Burns hockey with lots of defensively responsible forwards, but their blueline past Niedermayer was nothing special once Stevens was forced to sit out.

The 1997 Wings with Fetisov-Konstantinov and Lidstrom-Murphy are up there, but in terms of pure team defense, I would pick the Lemaire-era Devils and Hitchcock-era stars over them. Detroit was defense-first, but was more balanced.

TDDM, i'm curious: do you think '03 was the best devils defence (counting the whole team/coaching strategy, not just the six guys on the blueline)?

or did it just seem like the best one defensively because the offence was so thin?

i look at 2000: scott stevens is better in '00 and '03, niedermayer is not quite niedermayer, and rafalski and white are relatively green, but daneyko is much better. up front you still have madden and pando, plus holik and claude, and nemchinov (i don't remember him at all from that year, but he was very good defensively earlier in his career) and mckay is still there. it was a more run and gun team under robinson, but i remember that team being very tough to score on; i feel like all of their opponents stopped scoring at all a couple games into each series.

or '95: claude lemieux again at his shadowy best, carpenter completely reinventing himself, broten, young holik with mckay grinding it out... plus lemaire.

i'll say though that among all contenders, it has to be a devils team at the top because marty was part of the team defence. most goalies prevent goals and are, of course, extremely important defensively. but marty was the only guy who consistently stopped offenses before they could create shots, which is really something else.

 

[TheDevilMadeMe]

TDDM, i'm curious: do you think '03 was the best devils defence (counting the whole team/coaching strategy, not just the six guys on the blueline)?

or did it just seem like the best one defensively because the offence was so thin?

i look at 2000: scott stevens is better in '00 and '03, niedermayer is not quite niedermayer, and rafalski and white are relatively green, but daneyko is much better. up front you still have madden and pando, plus holik and claude, and nemchinov (i don't remember him at all from that year, but he was very good defensively earlier in his career) and mckay is still there. it was a more run and gun team under robinson, but i remember that team being very tough to score on; i feel like all of their opponents stopped scoring at all a couple games into each series.

or '95: claude lemieux again at his shadowy best, carpenter completely reinventing himself, broten, young holik with mckay grinding it out... plus lemaire.

i'll say though that among all contenders, it has to be a devils team at the top because marty was part of the team defence. most goalies prevent goals and are, of course, extremely important defensively. but marty was the only guy who consistently stopped offenses before they could create shots, which is really something else.

I think 2002-03 was the best defensive team if you look at both regular season and playoffs. 1996-97 was probably the height of their defensive dominance in the regular season, and 1994-95 was just a dominant playoff run. But if we're just looking at dominant playoff runs, the 2011-12 Kings are up their in terms of team defense.

The 1999-2000 Devils had the best roster, but they were coached to be a more balanced team than a defensive one.

 

[SealsFan]

Tossup between the Devils and Stars teams mentioned, although I'm partial to that Stars lineup.

 

[vadim sharifijanov]

I think 2002-03 was the best defensive team if you look at both regular season and playoffs. 1996-97 was probably the height of their defensive dominance in the regular season, and 1994-95 was just a dominant playoff run. But if we're just looking at dominant playoff runs, the 2011-12 Kings are up their in terms of team defense.

The 1999-2000 Devils had the best roster, but they were coached to be a more balanced team than a defensive one.

just looking at the stats, can you say why the '03 allowed so many more shots than the '00 team (and, on a per game basis, also the '95 team)? GAA looks pretty similar all three years and so brodeur's save percentage is insane in '03-- i don't remember if he faced a lot of long, easy shots like thomas against the canucks in '11, where the bruins' excellent team defense kept the canucks almost completely on the perimeter but still averaged more than 35 shots against a game.

 

[TheDevilMadeMe]

just looking at the stats, can you say why the '03 allowed so many more shots than the '00 team (and, on a per game basis, also the '95 team)? GAA looks pretty similar all three years and so brodeur's save percentage is insane in '03-- i don't remember if he faced a lot of long, easy shots like thomas against the canucks in '11, where the bruins' excellent team defense kept the canucks almost completely on the perimeter but still averaged more than 35 shots against a game.

I wasn't aware of the shot totals, to be honest. I do know that 2000 was a puck possession type team that would take some chances to keep the attack going, which would sometimes lead to odd-man rushes against. The Lemaire and Burns coached teams almost never allowed odd man rushes, as they played it safe.

 

[Big Phil]

I'll name a team not mentioned yet. How about the 2008 Red Wings? They weren't the type of defense that would punish you physically but they were more like a well oiled machine. Lots of skill, lots of puck possession and rarely out of position. You look at the Pens in 2008 against them and you wonder how a team with the Penguins skill could look so bland at times. Part of it had to do with the fact that Crosby and Malkin and Staal hadn't experienced that level of hockey yet, but it also had to do with the fact that Detroit could just keep you away from their net. Throw in Zetterberg and Datsyuk playing excellent two way hockey as good as they ever did and this is not a team you even want to have a power play against.