going in reverse year order (23/23, 21/22, 20/21) Here is where Hanifin ranked at 5v5 in terms of defense who played at least 500 minutes in each of these Categories
GF/60 - 46, 17, 136
GA/60 - 142, 77, 65
SF/60 - 16, 9, 77
SA/60 - 81, 47, 38
CF/60 - 32, 10, 68
CA/60 - 75, 29, 41
xGF/60 - 18, 18, 84
xGA/60 - 99, 42, 33
GF% - 94, 23, 98
SF% - 32, 14, 49
CF% - 41, 16, 50
xGF% - 38, 15, 40
Based on that, calling him a Fringe top 60 defenseman does him injustice. I would say its safe to call him a top 40 defenseman in the league over the last 3 years.
He's been top 20 analytically for 3 straight years now. Top 10 in 2 of those 3 years. The notion that he's a #3 is frankly ridiculous.
Different perspective. The Flames over the last 3 (last 2 in particular) years have been very strong analytically, raw numbers flatter them heavily when guys like Zadorov are posting XGF% of like 56. So I'd prefer to use relative stats to adjust for team strength. I'd love to have EvolvingHockey or Jfresh War stats to add to the discussion but I'm not a subscriber to either.
Over the last 3 years here are Hanifin's relative stats at 5v5 amongst D-men with 1900 + minutes. 1900 is a completely arbitrary number but I didn't want to cutoff guys that had just broken out this year and guys who had retired after last year or lost a season earlier. Moving it up to 2000 doesn't change the numbers significantly.
XGF% rel: 67 of 171, behind both Weegar and Tanev. Moved up to 64 at 2000 mins.
CF% rel: 143 of 171, behind Weegar, Tanev and Zadorov.
HDCF% rel: 34 of 171 behind Tanev (who ranks #1) and Weegar.
GF% rel: 88 of 171. Again, behind both Tanev and Weegar.
Frankly, I don't like looking at stats like this because guys fall off or enter the league and get excluded. It reminds me of the "Monahan is 24th in scoring amongst C's over x years" that would completely ignore the circumstances of other players, breakout players and injuries. In this case these are the 3 most flattering years of Hanifin's career while others have struggled due to things out of their control like injury (Hedman) or haven't played enough yet to make this list (Power, Sanderson, Hughes soon)
Now I'd argue that D-men scoring 5v5 is really not all that important once you get past the elite guys because the difference between a guy giving you 1.04 P/60 and 0.85 P/60 is often like 4 points over a season but one will be top 30, while the other is like 95th. Regardless here are the scoring numbers.
P/60: 36 of 171 surrounded by guys like Nurse, Barrie, Jensen and Dahlin (big breakout this season). Below Weegar and ahead of Andersson (who I think most would agree is better offensively). In reference to what I said above Brendon Dillon who's played 21 less minutes in that time and is ranked 82/171 has 12 less points in that time-span. 4 less per season.
On the PK (normally I'd use just against stats because for stats are so low that small change can skew them like crazy but this is taking forever to type out on my phone.
XGF% rel: 2/100 Oddly enough Andersson is #1 and Tanev is 99 lol, special team sample sizes are small and I think Tanev performing so badly gives them a significant boost.
GF % rel: 40/100. Andersson is #2.
Then Hanifin is hardly used on the powerplay and even his biggest fans don't think he's impactful there. Dude has a muffin of a shot and isn't some elite passer.
Finally each time we've made the playoffs Hanifin has been amongst, if not our worst defenseman. It's not just against McDavid; he was absolutely awful against the Stars last year as well, the Avs in 2019 and was meh-bad in the bubble playoffs.
Taking all this into consideration would it be wrong to think of Hanifin as a #3 that is good at some things and not good at others? You could argue he's a bit higher than that if you wanted but aside from raw counting stats Im having a very hard time seeing anything that places him as a top 40 guy in the league. Flames fans seem to think he's Devon Toews analytically when he really isn't anything special.
I personally don't think he's a top pairing D-man I think he's a guy who is usually fairly solid but has low hockey IQ, makes some ridiculous mistakes and doesn't perform well under pressure. I don't think he moves the needle offensively and I don't think he's this defensive anchor others seem to think he is.
TLDR: Hanifin's relative analytics really aren't that strong. They're fine, good in some cases but he's 3rd amongst Flames D-men in most stats. I don't think the Flames have 3 top 40D and I don't think neutral fans who have watched them much over the last few years would think that either.
