Orlov was an absolute monster last night. Carlson looked like a Norris winner when he was with Orlov. On the other hand, Kempny continues to be a real concern. On Burakovsky's goal Carlson put Kempny in a bad spot but Kempny played the 2-on-1 really poorly. He looks more and more like that guy who couldn't break the Hawks lineup than the guy who looked like the best TDL acquisition in recent memory.
If I were to rank the defensemen in confidence intervals based on performance as a proxy of their role, i.e. if they're a top pairing defenseman, how confident am I that they're playing that role well, here's how I'd rank them:
- High: Carlson, Orlov, Siegenthaler
- Medium: Gudas
- Low: Kempny, Jensen
I'm not convinced Kempny isn't as big of or even a bigger concern than Jensen right now, which is really alarming when you consider if that's the case they're only capable of icing 2/4 top 4 defensemen. I feel like if you swapped out Kempny and Jensen with, say, Brodin and Petry this team would steamroll people. Part of the reason I think they have looked so poor lately is instead of only having a hole at 2RD, they now have a hole at 1LD and 2RD and it's throwing off the entire team.
It all starts on defense. When they won the Cup in 2018 they had three very solid pairings with no weaknesses and it allowed the forwards to play aggressively without overthinking or having any fear. It's very hard to play offense if your backend is a mess. You're more tired since you're playing defense more, it's harder to break out, you're less likely to take risks, etc. Kempny and Jensen, not Holtby or Samsonov, are the difference between potentially raising the Cup or flaming out in the first round.