Is there a stat that reflects the value of defensive defencemen?

Flyerss

Registered User
Jun 23, 2013
5,840
58
Not for a defenseman. You don't really want the guy who's supposed to be behind the play being the one who is the first to enter. Measuring how many breakout passes they make can be good though.

i think he meant defending zone entries
 

Eisen

Registered User
Sep 30, 2009
16,737
3,101
Duesseldorf
Nothing against blocking shots but for the top defenders I'd like to add break out passes. You don't want to only block shots, you want to get the puck out of your zone.
 

Ducks DVM

sowcufucakky
Jun 6, 2010
51,608
28,578
Long Beach, CA
Can't possibly be the fault of the team that they have to. Those guys suck.

I was going to write a post about how odd it was to consider every shot a reflection of the defenseman's play rather than of the team as a whole, but those stats seemed sufficient to blow a big enough hole in the blocked shots = bad defenseman correlation.
 

Paul4587

Registered User
Jan 26, 2006
31,162
13,178
As per usual there are a lot of people who do not understand possession stats and how that correlates to winning hockey games.

Player A is a fast footed, quick thinking, puck moving defenseman. He rarely turns the puck over, when he is on the ice his team tends to move from defense to offense. His corsi and fenwick numbers are high, as are his zone finish stats. Because his team spends comparatively little time in his own end when he's on the ice, the other team takes few shots, and thus he blocks few.

Player B is a heavy footed dullard who "clears the crease" really well and lays down facefirst in front of every shot he sees. He can't handle the puck well and his outlets are usually just chips off the boards that the other team picks up in the neutral zone. He leads the league in GRIT which consists of HITZ + BLOCKZ


Player A is the better defensive player, period.

What if the majority of blocked shots come from the PK? Surely that shouldn't be held against a defenseman and indicates a skill. And quality of teammates certainly factors in to how good a defensemans possession numbers are.
 

TopShelfYzerman

Gm 7 Double OT
Jan 3, 2011
2,762
129
USA
www.youtube.com
Coaches already deploy their guys in the situations they are best at, so just look at minutes played to figure out who the best ones in the league are.

TOI/GP and SH TOI/GP

Suter
Doughty
Weber
Josi
OEL
Keith
AP

If you want 'defense only', just note low pp times.

Marc Staal
Willie Mitchell
Chris Phillips
Denis Seidenberg
Brooks Orpik
Niklas Hjalmarsson
Alexei Emelin
Jan Hejda

Voilà! Your who's-who of who the best 'defensive' d-men are in the NHL.

Then pick your individual stats to suit whatever you think makes them deployed this way. Hits? Block-shots? Takeaways? 'Advanced' stats? Whatever.

If you have a solid defense with many #1 #2 defenseman the roles will be distributed moreso than a team with only 1 solid #1 defender though.
 

Bee Sheriff

Bad Boy Postingâ„¢
Nov 9, 2013
24,513
33
Tucson
these are also calculated for opposition zone entry success against particular defenders. in this case, the defenseman is playing defense, in that they don't have possession, and are attempting to deny the other team entry.

That makes sense then, pretty important.
 

GreatjonUmber

Registered User
Mar 9, 2013
501
0
Elmore, VT
Yeah I would agree that shot blocking isn't really indicative of defensive prowess. I would think being able to consistently give the goalie a clear sight of the puck is more important
 

bambamcam4ever

107 and counting
Feb 16, 2012
14,303
6,344
No one is challenging that. The anti-blocks crew has set up this strawman where Brett Clark is the prototypical defenseman, but that's not the point that's being made. This entire thing started because I mentioned Fenwick as a good stat since it reflects possession while still showing that shot blocking is useful.

Sure, shot blocking is a skill but one that you ideally don't have to use.

You are the only one using strawmen. No one is saying that being able to effectively block a shot isn't a positive trait for a player. What some are saying is that accumulated shot blocking totals are not a good measure of a player's defensive ability.
 

The Macho King

Back* to Back** World Champion
Jun 22, 2011
48,611
28,848
Sure, shot blocking is a skill but one that you ideally don't have to use.

You are the only one using strawmen. No one is saying that being able to effectively block a shot isn't a positive trait for a player. What some are saying is that accumulated shot blocking totals are not a good measure of a player's defensive ability.

It's a skill that can only be extensively showcased if you are worse at playing hockey than your opponents. Not useful.

That's a pretty direct statement to saying it isn't a good skill to have. Not a single person argued that blocking shots is the whole metric, but rather it's a positive trait to have (hence, Fenwick), but then you have the anti-shotblocking crew saying things like the above.
 

JayKing

Go Habs Go
Dec 30, 2011
15,234
418
Montreal
Coaches already deploy their guys in the situations they are best at, so just look at minutes played to figure out who the best ones in the league are.

TOI/GP and SH TOI/GP

Suter
Doughty
Weber
Josi
OEL
Keith
AP

If you want 'defense only', just note low pp times.

Marc Staal
Willie Mitchell
Chris Phillips
Denis Seidenberg
Brooks Orpik
Niklas Hjalmarsson
Alexei Emelin
Jan Hejda

Voilà! Your who's-who of who the best 'defensive' d-men are in the NHL.

Then pick your individual stats to suit whatever you think makes them deployed this way. Hits? Block-shots? Takeaways? 'Advanced' stats? Whatever.

Emelin :tvhappy:
 

bambamcam4ever

107 and counting
Feb 16, 2012
14,303
6,344
That's a pretty direct statement to saying it isn't a good skill to have. Not a single person argued that blocking shots is the whole metric, but rather it's a positive trait to have (hence, Fenwick), but then you have the anti-shotblocking crew saying things like the above.

Look at the OP.

is there any stat that reveals how good a defensive defenceman is playing?

Some are arguing (myself included) that shot blocking is not a good stat to measure defensive prowess. This relates to the OP and the title of the thread. You keep arguing that shot blocking is important. Great. But unless you are arguing that higher shot blocking totals are indicative of a better defensive player, (while they in fact correlate with the opposite), I'm not sure what your point is.
 

The Macho King

Back* to Back** World Champion
Jun 22, 2011
48,611
28,848
Look at the OP.



Some are arguing (myself included) that shot blocking is not a good stat to measure defensive prowess. This relates to the OP and the title of the thread. You keep arguing that shot blocking is important. Great. But unless you are arguing that higher shot blocking totals are indicative of a better defensive player, (while they in fact correlate with the opposite), I'm not sure what your point is.

:facepalm:

I pointed out Fenwick is probably the best stat (when coupled with zone start), because Fenwick accounts for blocked shots.
 

WordsOfWisdumb*

Guest
Forwards have stats that reflect their offensive prowess. Goalies have save %.

Not so much interested in offensive defencemen as goals/assists reflects part of their value. What I was wondering is whether there is any stat that reveals how good a defensive defenceman is playing?

I'm working on it. :)

(See Toronto Maple Leafs area -- Defensive Errors.)

I think people need to realize (as much as some hate it) that this is honestly the closest thing to what they're looking for. And I'm hoping it (or something like it) becomes an official NHL stat soon.
 
Last edited by a moderator:

bambamcam4ever

107 and counting
Feb 16, 2012
14,303
6,344
:facepalm:

I pointed out Fenwick is probably the best stat (when coupled with zone start), because Fenwick accounts for blocked shots.

No, you didn't. You like to say "hence, Fenwick" a lot and referred to yourself saying that Fenwick was a good stat yet you never actually made that claim.

I'm not inside your head so try to make things more clear to others reading your posts next time. Also, "Hence, Fenwick" isn't a sentence, and doesn't really mean anything other than the implied Fenwick exists.
 

The Macho King

Back* to Back** World Champion
Jun 22, 2011
48,611
28,848
No, you didn't. You like to say "hence, Fenwick" a lot and referred to yourself saying that Fenwick was a good stat yet you never actually made that claim.

I'm not inside your head so try to make things more clear to others reading your posts next time. Also, "Hence, Fenwick" isn't a sentence, and doesn't really mean anything other than the implied Fenwick exists.

It's called reading context. There was nothing ambiguous by that, you're just being combative.
 

EnforceTheLaus

In the Year of Our Hatter
Nov 3, 2013
10,183
1,911
Goalie SV% when on the ice relative to the rest of the dmen is a pretty telling one. That and PK time, QoC, and zone starts can show show how much he is relied upon the SV% is the biggest one though.
 

Ad

Upcoming events

Ad

Ad

-->