Gags1288 said:
True, but you can gage a players defensive prowess by looking at his +/- in comparison to the rest of his teammates. ...
True, but I would take this one step further. Plus/minus tells you a bit about offense and a bit about defense. In order to determine how good a player is purely in terms of defense, look at the goals he's on the ice for, divided up into ES and PP, compared to his teammates.
For example, let's look at Darcy Tucker.
Even-strength goals against per 60 minutes (min 400 minutes ice time):
Robert Reichel 23 748 1.84
Alexander Mogilny 15 488 1.85
Darcy Tucker 25 805 1.86
Gary Roberts 31 981 1.90
Bryan McCabe 42 1327 1.90
Alexei Ponikarovsky 24 745 1.93
Tie Domi 28 845 1.99
Mats Sundin 38 1133 2.01
Tomas Kaberle 39 1161 2.02
Bryan Marchment 38 1041 2.19
Karel Pilar 27 721 2.25
Aki Berg 44 1171 2.26
Tom Fitzgerald 25 663 2.26
Mikael Renberg 28 732 2.30
Nik Antropov 29 736 2.36
Ken Klee 40 999 2.40
Joe Nieuwendyk 33 793 2.50
Matthew Stajan 28 663 2.53
Owen Nolan 35 796 2.64
Ric Jackman 21 446 2.82
In 2004, Tucker was one of the best even-strength defensive forwards on Toronto. He definitely got tougher defensive assignments than Reichel and Mogilny.
Bryan McCabe is by far the best ES defensive defenseman on the Leafs. It's funny how people criticize him based on one bad game (albeit an important one), but over the course of the year McCabe was the best ES defensive defenseman on Toronto.
Short-handed goals against per 60 minutes (min 100 minutes ice time):
Ken Klee 17 222 4.59
Aki Berg 18 232 4.65
Nik Antropov 9 109 4.98
Tom Fitzgerald 16 175 5.48
Darcy Tucker 19 177 6.43
Robert Reichel 18 165 6.53
Bryan McCabe 30 275 6.54
Mats Sundin 16 143 6.74
Owen Nolan 20 169 7.10
Tomas Kaberle 34 248 8.22
Tucker was above-average on the penalty kill, compared to his teammates.
Look at the huge difference between Klee & Berg, and Kaberle. The former were far better defenisvely than anyone else on the team, while Kaberle lags badly behind.