Regular season adjusted stats for post-1967 defencemen
Stapleton, Konstantinov, and Zubov stats and commentary are a repeat. Housley and White's info is new.
Career Stats
Player | Start year | End year | GP | EV% | R-ON | R-OFF | $ESP | $PPP | PP% | TmPP+ | SH% | TmSH+
Pat Stapleton | 1968 | 1973 | 420 | 51% | 1.38 | 1.22 | 38 | 18 | 67% | 1.03 | 44% | 0.84
Bill White | 1968 | 1976 | 604 | 49% | 1.24 | 1.05 | 29 | 10 | 44% | 0.94 | 65% | 0.88
Phil Housley | 1983 | 2003 | 1495 | 38% | 1.06 | 0.97 | 35 | 33 | 84% | 1.01 | 11% | 0.95
Vladimir Konstantinov | 1992 | 1997 | 446 | 35% | 1.56 | 1.29 | 29 | 4 | 13% | 1.21 | 41% | 0.76
Sergei Zubov | 1993 | 2009 | 1068 | 42% | 1.25 | 1.13 | 33 | 34 | 82% | 1.14 | 33% | 0.86
Prime Stats
Player | Start year | End year | GP | EV% | R-ON | R-OFF | $ESP | $PPP | PP% | TmPP+ | SH% | TmSH+
Pat Stapleton | 1969 | 1972 | 278 | 53% | 1.51 | 1.33 | 41 | 22 | 79% | 1.02 | 49% | 0.80
Bill White | 1970 | 1974 | 345 | 48% | 1.48 | 1.29 | 30 | 9 | 39% | 1.07 | 73%| 0.78
Phil Housley | 1987 | 1996 | 686 | 42% | 1.07 | 0.95 | 41 | 35 | 87% | 1.03 | 16% | 0.98
Vladimir Konstantinov | 1996 | 1997 | 158 | 36% | 2.31 | 1.14 | 32 | 8 | 22% | 1.23 | 43% | 0.62
Sergei Zubov | 1998 | 2007 | 705 | 41% | 1.25 | 1.16 | 29 | 35 | 84% | 1.14 | 41% | 0.85
Stats Glossary
EV%: The percentage of the team’s even-strength goals the player was on the ice for, on a per-game basis.
R-ON: The team’s GF/GA ratio while the player is on the ice at even strength.
R-OFF: The team’s GF/GA ratio while the player is off the ice at even strength.
$ESP/S: Even strength points per season, adjusted to a 200 ESG per team-season scoring level.
$PPP/S: Power play points per season, adjusted to a 70 PPG per team-season scoring level and a league-average number of power play opportunities.
PP%: The percentage of the team’s power play goals for which the player was on the ice.
TmPP+: The strength of the player’s team on the power play. 1.00 is average, higher is better.
SH%: The percentage of the team’s power play goals against for which the player was on the ice.
TmSH+: The strength of the player’s team on the penalty kill. 1.00 is average, lower is better.
What does it all mean?
Pat Stapleton played 215 NHL games before expansion, and 372 games in the WHA. Those stats are not included here. He finished 3rd in Norris voting in 1965-66, so that year should ideally be included in his prime. That said, in the NHL stats I have, he shows a clear peak from 68-69 to 71-72.
Stapleton played huge minutes in his prime years, as you can tell from the usage statistics. This was more common at the time, as teams were still using four or five regular defencemen, not six, and Stapleton and his fellow defencemen were just starting to be used more on the power play. But even considering the era, Stapleton probably played as many minutes as any player in the league.
He was a tremendous skater and an effective puck mover, putting up a lot of points at even strength. He was also used on the power play and penalty kill extensively in his prime years, starting in 1968-69, when he stepped into Pierre Pilote's old role as Chicago's #1 defenceman.
Drawbacks? Well, he wasn't on either top special teams unit prior to 1968-69 - maybe a similar situation to Scott Niedermayer on the Devils? And his numbers started dropping off in 1972-73 before he went to the WHA, although he did score 10 goals that year.
Important to remember that is was easier for stars to put up good numbers in some of these stats in the 1970s, especially team based stats, because of the lack of parity.
Bill White was an outstanding defensive defenceman who still had respectable offensive skills. He played big minutes on a very strong Chicago team in the early 1970s, especially on the penalty kill.
Even after considering that the best defencemen were able to play more minutes in the 1970s (longer shifts, 5 defencemen instead of 6 as the norm, and less parity), White must be considered one of the best penalty-killing defencemen ever, in my opinion.
Phil Housley was an extreme offensive defenceman. Great offensively, not-so-great defensively.
He played some centre in his first two years in Buffalo, and in the following two years was a bit of a power-play specialist, playing bottom-pairing minutes at even strength. He had a solid 10-year prime as one of the top scoring defencemen in the league before his scoring numbers dropped off to the 40-50 point level.
Very few defencemen played more than Housley on the power play. Here are the leading defencemen in career PP%, minimum 1000 GP post-expansion.
Player | GP | PP%
Ray Bourque | 1612 | 87%
Brian Leetch | 1205 | 87%
Denis Potvin | 1060 | 86%
Al MacInnis | 1416 | 86%
Phil Housley
|
1495
|
84%
And very few established NHL defencemen played less time on the penalty kill. Here are the 1000 GP post-expansion defencemen with the lowest SH%.
Player | GP | SH%
Phil Housley
|
1495
|
11%
Sergei Gonchar | 1058 | 21%
Fredrik Olausson | 1022 | 22%
Petr Svoboda | 1047 | 25%
Ed Jovanovski | 1019 | 25%
His special teams numbers are interesting not only in and of themselves, but also because they give an idea of what type of player he was.
But I have to give him credit - among post-1980 defencemen, only Coffey, Bourque, and Leetch had better adjusted even-strength points in their prime. On the power play, Housley's numbers were behind Coffey, Bourque, Leetch, Lidstrom, and Gonchar, and similar to Reinhart, Suter, Pronger, Zubov, Markov, and Boyle. Was Housley (relatively) better at even-strength scoring because he traded defence for offence more than others? Or because his power play teammates weren't as good?
Vladimir Konstantinov is a hard player to rank. Short career, and he played in a bit of an extreme team situation.
I've isolated his 95-96 and 96-97 seasons as his peak. But his usage numbers in those seasons are pretty similar to the rest of his career - the main difference is that his plus-minus skyrocketed. A sudden change like that makes me wonder if was a change in the team situation or context. Did playing with the Russian Five make a big difference?
Konstantinov probably could have played a larger role on the power play and scored more points on a weaker team, but that wasn't necessary on a stacked Detroit team. He also had some seasons in Russia that are not included here.
Sergei Zubov was a very good offensive defenceman for a long time. He went from being poor defensively to being a useful defender later in his career, and was a plus defender under post-lockout rules when skating ability became more important than size and strength.
But he never really had a big season where he was a legitimate Norris contender.
