HFBoards Top 31 NHL Defenders - #14

[LT]

Rank	Player	Age	Team	Country	GP	G	A	P	%
#1	Victor Hedman	28			70	12	42	54	61.8%
#2	Erik Karlsson	29			53	3	42	45	49.2%
#3	Drew Doughty	29			82	8	37	45	33.8%
#4	Brent Burns	34			82	16	67	83	33.8%
#5	Mark Giordano	35			78	17	57	75	46.5%
#6	Seth Jones	24			75	9	37	46	48.4%
#7	Alex Pietrangelo	29			71	13	28	41	36.1%
#8	Roman Josi	29			82	15	41	56	35.4%
#9	Morgan Rielly	25			82	20	52	72	32.4%
#10	John Carlson	29			80	13	57	70	26.5%
#11	John Klingberg	27			64	10	35	45	19.3%, 65.7% (TB)
#12	P.K. Subban	30			63	9	22	31	19.9%, 34.3% (TB)
#13	Kris Letang	32			65	16	40	56	28.6%
#14
#15
#16
#17
#18
#19
#20
#21
#22
#23
#24
#25
#26
#27
#28
#29
#30
#31

[TBODY] [/TBODY]

Rank hyperlinks direct to the corresponding voting thread.
Player hyperlinks direct to the corresponding player's hockey-reference.com page.

Suggested Additions:
Mathew Dumba
Ryan Ellis
Shayne Gostisbehere
Erik Gustafsson
Torey Krug
Brett Pesce
Jeff Petry
Ivan Provorov
Marc-Eduoard Vlasic
Zach Werenski
Keith Yandle

Click to read more...

 

[LT]

Went with Slavin, but there are several good options here.

 

[NetflixandPhil]

Slavin pretty easily imo there's a drop off after 14

Add Werenski

 

[ccman68]

Has been Lindholm for a while. He is like a better version of Slavin.

 

[NetflixandPhil]

Has been Lindholm for a while. He is like a better version of Slavin.

I seriously dont get how hes being considered here. No where besides HF considers him this highly. The analytics have to start translating into results and the Ducks were trash defensively as a team. The reason his look good is because he was the best defender on a bad defense

 

[Blueboy]

Slavin pretty underrated.

I wouldn’t have Subban that high.

 

[LetsGoBLUES91]

I seriously dont get how hes being considered here. No where besides HF considers him this highly. The analytics have to start translating into results and the Ducks were trash defensively as a team. The reason his look good is because he was the best defender on a bad defense

Agreed. Slavin here. Then I see at least 6 guys on the list...AT LEAST...that I would take over Hampus Lindholm.

He'll make a top-31 list, but not yet.

 

[LuckyBoeser]

I seriously dont get how hes being considered here. No where besides HF considers him this highly. The analytics have to start translating into results and the Ducks were trash defensively as a team. The reason his look good is because he was the best defender on a bad defense

Wouldn't his defense look worse because he played on a bad defense?

 

[stl76]

I swear, it’s like people just completely forget that Ryan Suter exists.

 

[Dion TheFluff]

Wouldn't his defense look worse because he played on a bad defense?

not when using relative stats

 

[Regal]

I swear, it’s like people just completely forget that Ryan Suter exists.

To be fair, Wild fans seem pretty unanimous in saying that he took a step back last year coming back from injury, even though his stat line was pretty similar, and that Spurgeon was the better defenseman last year.

 

[TomasHertlsRooster]

I seriously dont get how hes being considered here. No where besides HF considers him this highly. The analytics have to start translating into results and the Ducks were trash defensively as a team. The reason his look good is because he was the best defender on a bad defense

Hampus Lindholm has posted excellent results throughout his entire career, and his analytics look excellent even if you don’t look at team relative metrics.

Over the past 3 seasons, among the 118 defensemen with at least 3,000 minutes at 5-on-5, he ranks in the top-30 in CF%, xGF%, and GF%. He ranks 15th in GF%, which is the analytic that quite literally determines who wins the game.

That is before you factor in that he plays bonafide #1 minutes on a poor team. If you use relative metrics, he does rank top-5 in all of the stats I just posted. And the “isolated impact” stats all say he is one of the best.

 

[LuckyBoeser]

not when using relative stats

Yes but in term of raw analytics in which Lindholm excels in; it more likely to get negatively affected by a bad supporting cast than it would be positively affected. Isolated impacts doesn't get positively influence by playing a bad team and Lindholm posts great results in rapm. If I remember correctly he also posts great results according to isolated heatmap but I don't have patreon so I have zero access.

 

[NotLeddy]

Lindholm.

Slavin isn't even the best defenseman on his team (but he's still really, really good).

 

[NetflixandPhil]

Yes but in term of raw analytics in which Lindholm excels in; it more likely to get negatively affected by a bad supporting cast than it would be positively affected. Isolated impacts doesn't get positively influence by playing a bad team and Lindholm posts great results in rapm. If I remember correctly he also posts great results according to isolated heatmap but I don't have patreon so I have zero access.

Honestly when evaluating the best players in the league I couldn't care less about analytics. I tend to believe analytics are a good tool to evaluate the mid range or depth players

 

[amnesiac]

Lindholm.

Slavin isn't even the best defenseman on his team (but he's still really, really good).

pretty sure than Canes' board would disagree

 

[amnesiac]

add Werenski

suggested: Ellis, Ghost, Vlasic

 

[LuckyBoeser]

Honestly when evaluating the best players in the league I couldn't care less about analytics. I tend to believe analytics are a good tool to evaluate the mid range or depth players

I'm curious on why you could care less about using analytics to evaluate top tier players but think it's a good tool to evaluate the mid range or depth players?

 

[NetflixandPhil]

I'm curious on why you could care less about using analytics to evaluate top tier players but think it's a good tool to evaluate the mid range or depth players?

When evaluating top tier players I think the ability to be a gamebreaker is the most important and that's something that cant be measured by advanced statistics. in the end it's what happens not what's supposed to happen and the top players dictate games by what actually happens

 

[kingblue]

Slavin is amazing

 

[kingblue]

Lindholm.

Slavin isn't even the best defenseman on his team (but he's still really, really good).

You wrong man

 

[LT]

Heiskanen's my favorite player, but why the hell does he has 10 votes?

 

[780il]

Suters being very underrated. Yes he's old and his contract sucks but he's still a stud.

 

[The S5]

Looks like old reputations still carries a lot of weight for D on HF.
Some of the guys already selected should be embarrassed to call themselves defenders.

 

[stl76]

To be fair, Wild fans seem pretty unanimous in saying that he took a step back last year coming back from injury, even though his stat line was pretty similar, and that Spurgeon was the better defenseman last year.

Spurgeon had a great year no doubt. Maybe I just wasn't paying enough attention, but I don't remember reading that Suter took a step back. He looked like his usual rock solid self in the games that I saw.

Regardless, this isn't a poll of which dman had the best season last year. Suter has always been underrated. He's been a fantastic top 10 dman for the last decade, and one maybe slightly off year (in which he still performed very well) is not enough to knock him down this far IMO.