Speculation: Who has been our best D vs. Boston?

[HamiltonNHL]

Hard to say.

 

[Beleafer4]

IMO

1) Rielly
2) Gardiner
3+ 4) Polak/Hainsey
5) Zaitsev ( started garbage but made a comeback)
6) Dermott

 

[Raging Bull]

Same guy that's been our best defenseman all year.

 

[Northernguy10]

Pretty good group effort for all of them honestly. Dermott is probably the only one I'd say hasn't played very well.

Dermott has played less than half season in the NHL and his game is skating and playing fast and loose so to speak. He's very aggressive offensively and a very confident guy.. All of this is good but he is being asked to play a more conservative playoff style (either asked by Babcock or forced by the Bruins)...He needs experience on how to find that line between both styles...he is showing this inexperience by being hesitant at times..He's a smart kid and over the next few years he'll only get better and better...I wouldn't be shocked if he is our best defence man within a few years. Anyhoo, I'm not disagreeing with you re: this series but I do see a bright future for this kid.

 

[Joey Hoser]

Dermott has played less than half season in the NHL and his game is skating and playing fast and loose so to speak. He's very aggressive offensively and a very confident guy.. All of this is good but he is being asked to play a more conservative playoff style (either asked by Babcock or forced by the Bruins)...He needs experience on how to find that line between both styles...he is showing this inexperience by being hesitant at times..He's a smart kid and over the next few years he'll only get better and better...I wouldn't be shocked if he is our best defence man within a few years. Anyhoo, I'm not disagreeing with you re: this series but I do see a bright future for this kid.

Oh yeah I'm not worried about him at all. He's going to be a great player. It's just a rookie defenseman not excelling in his first playoffs. Nothing to see here.

He hasn't even been that bad. Just a few too many giveaways.

 

[Martin Skoula]

I have no idea how to rate Dermott to be honest. A lot of times I see him making the "right" play and putting the puck to a safe spot where we should have a forward 99% of the time. Except there isn't a forward there, and now it's a turnover. It's the right systematic instinct, but the playoffs are chaotic and our system gets disrupted easily.

On one hand, yeah he should have double checked that he had support, but on the other, Boston's forechecking is very aggressive - that half-second delay is the difference between a breakout pass and getting plastered into the boards and turning it over 10 feet from your net.

 

[Zybalto]

To me, this was the most interesting topic entering the playoffs as the big question on my mind was how the defense would handle the tough assignment of containing the big bad Bruins. Everyone in the media was claiming it was out greatest weakness and the first four games seemed to verify that claim but I think they have actually been the surprise in many ways and it was a mix of goaltending/lack of scoring/really bad puck luck that let us down those first 4.

I'm still working and I wanna get deep into this but some of the responses have been.....interesting.

Detailed ranking tonight at some point.

 

[Duffman955]

Polak has played like a solid bottom pairing Dman.

Dermott has been a turnover mission and constantly misses his defensive assignments. He needs more seasoning. Not enough NHL games under his belt yet.

 

[Apotheosis]

Rielly had one really bad game, but the rest he was good and game 6 he was amazing.

 

[sparxx87]

Rielly, without question. Rough start along with everyone else but he’s been very good ever since.

I think most importantly for the D is that games 5-6 have been the best hockey Nikita Zaitsev has played in a long time. He’s finding his rhythm at the right time so hopefully that continues through game 7 and beyond.

Aside from that, everyone has been pretty much what you’d expect;
Hainsey - solid but looked tired at times.
Gardiner - he’s been Jake Gardiner.
Polak - the B’s are a good matchup for him.
Dermott - he’s been pretty good although a few mistakes have really burned him.

 

[Tak7]

IMO

1) Rielly
2) Gardiner
3+ 4) Polak/Hainsey
5) Zaitsev ( started garbage but made a comeback)
6) Dermott

Very accurate.

 

[cannucky]

The Fan Boys have spoken , there has been 3 good D men and 3 shyte Dmen and there's been no in between , Gards , Hains and Polak have been real NHL D the other 3 have been turnover machines. They ought to give Morgan Lebda a chair and a box of popcorn when he's in our end , at least that way the Bruins might hit him with a puck or two and he won't be able to make that soft blind pass to the Bruin winger on the half boards he's become so adept at . Anybody that thinks skating into the offensive corner and getting trapped then skating in circles never engaging anyone in our end is NHL caliber D needs to go back to their XBox in mommy's basement .

 

[pengdeng12]

Gardiner easily

only 2 bad plays I remember. His pinch that lead to the goal and once he threw puck up the middle and was intercepted and kept in

 

[pengdeng12]

Surprised that a lot of people pick rielly

Lot of turnovers last game.

 

[Seath The Scaleless]

Gardiner for me. Rielly 2nd. Zaitsev has stepped it up lately

Polak and Hainsey's hot potato puck handling skills have led to glorious chances for the Bruins. Their inability to clear the zone without icing the puck is incredibly frustrating to watch.

 

[diceman934]

The Fan Boys have spoken , there has been 3 good D men and 3 shyte Dmen and there's been no in between , Gards , Hains and Polak have been real NHL D the other 3 have been turnover machines. They ought to give Morgan Lebda a chair and a box of popcorn when he's in our end , at least that way the Bruins might hit him with a puck or two and he won't be able to make that soft blind pass to the Bruin winger on the half boards he's become so adept at . Anybody that thinks skating into the offensive corner and getting trapped then skating in circles never engaging anyone in our end is NHL caliber D needs to go back to their XBox in mommy's basement .

lol even if you tried you could not be more wrong. Haisney has been boarderline brutal and Rielly has easily been our best D man. Playing against the Bruins top line he has 5 assist 5on5 and so you thinking he gets trapped in a corner is a joke as his 5 assists 5 on 5 disproves your opinion.

His stat line last game. No Giveaway 1 takeaway and 4 block shots. You do realize our break out is putting the puck up the wall if there is no stick to stick pass available and it is the wingers job to get it past the pinching d man or the high forward . Morgan has been the one D man who has skated the puck out of our zone on a consistent basis.

Never engaging anyone. You do realize he wears #44 right?

 

[diceman934]

Surprised that a lot of people pick rielly

Lot of turnovers last game.

Look at his stat line as he did not register a giveaway and him putting the puck where his support is to be is not a giveaway.

 

[The List Of Jericho]

Went with Hainsey. No one else on the team can do what he is doing so far. He's been invaluable.

Hmm, I would have to argue against this, his lack of foot speed at times and bad clearances were really evident in the first two games. His reaction time has also diminished as the season has worn on.

 

[ponder]

Rielly has been great. Actually playing very strong/physical, rock solid defensively with few mistakes, and very good offensively. No complaints.

I’d put Gards second. There’s still some classic Gards brain farts and laziness every game, but not TOO many of them, and he’s bringing lots of positives.

No dman has been bad though, especially since the first 2 games. Even Polak is playing pretty well, other than the constant stream of icings. If he’d just lay off the stretch pass attempts, which he tries constantly with a nearly 0% success rate, he’d be a much better player.

 

[I Am The Stig]

I picked Rielly. Minus a piss poor Games 1 and 2, he's been really solid the rest of the games.

 

[moon111]

I would say every time saw anyone on the fourth line taking flak, it was Hainsey that was the key to the failure. There's no forcing game seven if he didn't change his ways.

 

[Man Bear Pig]

Rielly and Gardiner. They're the only two who can consistently move the puck out safely. You don't know who'll show up of the other 4.

 

[Zybalto]

Very tough call between Zaitsev and Gards for me.

Zeke had always been posting various analytics before games and once I got into them I was pretty hooked. I knew about corsi a little bit never really took into account how important things like SCF%, HDCF% zone starts, PDO, xGF% and other stats were in showing how productive a player has been.

With Boston you also have to take into account the quality of their top line which was countered most frequently by the Rielly/Hainsey combo. While that factored in to my pick, Rielly especially has been somewhat of a disappointment this series as he hasnt quite lived up to the way he played during the regular season, including his games against the Bruins. There is a lot of emotion behind many of those picking him as he was absolutely dreadful last night in the first half of the game before playing a very solid 2nd half but he was by no means even close to our best player last night. That was either Jake or Zaits. I mean, after the first period, he had a 7% corsi and 0% SCF (0-9). I'm glad he was able to pick it up for the 2nd half but it takes a fare bit of emotional investment to convince yourself into thinking he was our best dman that game.

Another thing going against Rielly is his super high PDO that includes forwards shooting at an 18% clip in front of him. (Poor Travis Dermott is still stuck at 0%)

While Jake has come on he last couple of games, Im going to go with Zaitsev as no one else probably will but he has blown away expectations and been very solid all series long outside of one period in game two. I think a lot of posters forget he was the only Dman to show up in game 1 when he first blew me away with his play including 5 minutes of clean PK when the other PKing dmen didnt really fare too well.

His overall 5v5 stats are amazing:

Zaitsev's stats and rank amoungst dmen in the playoffs with over 50 min played (88 players):

Minutes played: 18/88
Hits: 22 - 6/88 (Leads ALL Leafs players)
Corsi: 55% - 21/88
SCF: 59% - 13/88
HDCF: 67% - 7/88
xGF% - 59% - 11/88

You gotta remember hes putting up these numbers against the contender possession monster Bruins while many other series involved teams making quick work of inferior opponents.

He's also been a rock on the PK with only 2 goals going in while he was on the ice, both of them in the 1st period in the 2nd game (including that strange one Anderson knocked off his skate) That 5 on 3 he helped kill off was massive.

Analytically so far, noted comparables are names like Josi, Subban, Mcdonaugh, Hedman, etc. He's up there with the big boys......but what is not helping him is that forwards in front of him are only shooting at a 6% clip (that actually got a huge bump up last night so now his PDO is only abnormally low and not ludicrously low) I'm not saying he is going to continue to play at this level but I think we should all recognize his good play instead of every 5th person calling him an AHL player. For most of the season he as a train wreck and there were whispers of personal problems but he started to turn it around the last quarter of the season and it led to his play in this series and Im damn glad its happened.

Whats even more impressive is that Zaitsev has also played a higher QoC compared to the regular season is not sheltered in terms of zone starts as well.

Gardiner has gone beast mode as of late and is up there too and I almost pulled the trigger on him as he is eating some serious quality minutes and, after a comparably slow start, has caught up to Zaitsev in many of the key categories but not enough to dislodge the best defender of the series so far, Nikita Zaitsev.

 

[HomerJLeafs]

Morgan
By far.

 

[Zybalto]

Wow.....just clicked on the link and pretty shocked at the results.

Emotion, fandom, immediate recency bias and hot takes rule the roost around here I guess.

Either you guys are all correct or analytics have to start all over from scratch. Rielly has had some good moments but his mix of awful key analytics and super high luck numbers point to a pretty rough series. The forwards wont always be shooting at 18% to feed him a few points and Anderson wont always bail him out with an insane save. Its not sustainable.