Rank the Top 4 Defensemen in the Central

[Jayevs]

Nashville
St. Louis
Chicago
Colorado
Winnipeg
Minnesota
Dallas

 

[Day of the Duck]

Chicago (I'm just operating under the assumption they bring Oduya back, but just having Keith probably keeps me from bumping them down to 2 whatever happens with that situation)
Nashville
St Louis
Minnesota
Winnipeg
Colorado
Dallas

 

[EbonyRaptor]

Not sure why "top-4" - is it because the Hawks won the Cup by playing only their top-4 90%+ of the time? If the starting 6 d-men were taken into account I think I'd have to go with the Preds over the Hawks for #1 because the Hawks #5/6 were pretty bad. Moving forward, depending on re-signing Oduya, the Hawks may end up with a better d-corps than last season - but it depends on rookies and young players, so ...

But aside from all that, a Central Div. d-man I'm looking forward to watch this year is the Star's Klingberg. Man, that kid is a stud and he's just getting started.

 

[TaLoN]

Wild's d core is getting overrated here. They have Suter and bunch of average or just a little above average players.

As perfectly stated by someone who knows very little about the Wild's defensemen.

 

[HockeyFan100]

Nashville
St. Louis
Chicago
Winnipeg
Minnesota
Colorado
Dallas

 

[TaLoN]

How do people rank the Wild d core above the Avs? I mean based on what? If you break it down you got....

Suter is better than all the Avs D-men yes but after that you got...

EJ>>>any wild d-man not named Suter

Barrie is equal or better than any wild d not named Suter

Beauchemin see Barrie

Zadorov is still bit of a question mark but he can be as good or better than any Wild top 4 D not named Suter

Avs bottom pair is little weak, but we're talking top 4 here, and I'll take the Avs top 4 over Wild's

And this just shows how you underrate guys like Spurgeon...

@SteveBurtch: So Jared Spurgeon ranks 3rd overall in SAG/60 and 1st overall in Entry Assists/60 at 5v5 amongst NHL D with 100+ mins TOI. Crazy underrated.

@SteveBurtch: Oh and Drew Doughty leads in Entry Assists/60 and is like top 5 in SAG/60... He is not so underrated.

@SteveBurtch: But consider that Spurgeon is basically comparable to Doughty in this regard. That should be impressive.

 

[Flair Hay]

And this just shows how you underrate guys like Spurgeon...

Very underrated guy for sure. Not sure about quoting Burtch though...

 

[TaLoN]

Very underrated guy for sure. Not sure about quoting Burtch though...

I only quoted him because he had worth while stats to point out how underrated Spurgeon is.

As good as Spurgeon is, and he's damned good... most Wild fans still consider him the team's 4th best D-man, when at times, he has outplayed even Suter.

Scandella and Brodin both were voted ahead of Spurgeon along with Suter... and that's mostly to do with Brodin's age/upside - whilst already being a top pairing D-man, and Scandella's size/shot to go along with his great mobility and transition play as well.

Spurgeon - despite the smaller size, has such a high hockey IQ, that he more than makes up for that deficiency.

The Wild have one of the most mobile defenses in the entire NHL... and this thread doesn't even bring in Dumba yet, who just beasted it down the stretch last season and literally took a few games over and dominated play like the Wild have never seen from a D-man.

 

[Jeti]

That's not really the Jets top 4 because Buff, Myers and Trouba all play the right side. Myers is the worst of the bunch but gets paired with Enstrom so it's not possible to say which is the bottom pairing.

I'll add that the Avs did a great job this offseason. It's really just the Stars alone at the bottom now.

 

[Whileee]

That's not really the Jets top 4 because Buff, Myers and Trouba all play the right side. Myers is the worst of the bunch but gets paired with Enstrom so it's not possible to say which is the bottom pairing.

I'll add that the Avs did a great job this offseason. It's really just the Stars alone at the bottom now.

Maurice said last season that he envisions putting one of the top 3 RHD on the left side...

Probably....

Enstrom - Myers
Byfuglien - Trouba

 

[Spurgeon]

Wild's d core is getting overrated here. They have Suter and bunch of average or just a little above average players.

Lol.

Our defense is underrated, if anything.

How do people rank the Wild d core above the Avs? I mean based on what? If you break it down you got....

Suter is better than all the Avs D-men yes but after that you got...

EJ>>>any wild d-man not named Suter

Barrie is equal or better than any wild d not named Suter

Beauchemin see Barrie

Zadorov is still bit of a question mark but he can be as good or better than any Wild top 4 D not named Suter

Avs bottom pair is little weak, but we're talking top 4 here, and I'll take the Avs top 4 over Wild's

Oh God, you're comparing the Avs defense to the Wild.

I'm done. I can't.

 

[the_fan]

As perfectly stated by someone who knows very little about the Wild's defensemen.

So your argument is Spurgeon? lets see...

I'm pretty sure most people will take EJ over Spurgeon as EJ has turned into legit #1 d-man who hasn't had a good partner ever to play with in Colorado.

Spurgeon has played with a guy like Suter and had 25 points in 66 games last season while being plus 3.

Barrie had even worse partners to play with, such as Holden, Guenin, Stuart etc...yet Barrie on the 2nd pair has put up 53 points in 80 games and was a plus 5... clearly better numbers than Spurgeon and not to mention Wild were a playoff team Avs weren't.

Beauchemin is a better player than Spurgeon also, he's just older, so the edge right now could go to Spurgeon on a long run based on age.

Zadorov as i mentioned, is a question mark, but he has all the tools to become a dominant top pair d-man.

Like i said, even with Beauchemin being much older than Spurgeon, i'll take the Avs d-core for next season over the Wild's, and this has nothing to do with homerism, just going by numbers and stats.

 

[cgf]

Now I see why we don't have any chance in this division (Avs fan).

This thread is why it's important that we have one of the two elite goalies in the division...at least most of our talented dmen are still young and improving...

 

[Spurgeon]

So your argument is Spurgeon? lets see...

I'm pretty sure most people will take EJ over Spurgeon as EJ has turned into legit #1 d-man who hasn't had a good partner ever to play with in Colorado.

Spurgeon has played with a guy like Suter and had 25 points in 66 games last season while being plus 3.

Barrie had even worse partners to play with, such as Holden, Guenin, Stuart etc...yet Barrie on the 2nd pair has put up 53 points in 80 games and was a plus 5... clearly better numbers than Spurgeon and not to mention Wild were a playoff team Avs weren't.

Beauchemin is a better player than Spurgeon also, he's just older, so the edge right now could go to Spurgeon on a long run.

Zadorov as i mentioned, is a question mark, but he has all the tools to become a dominant top pair d-man.

Like i said, even with Beauchemin being much older than Spurgeon, i'll take the Avs d-core for next season over the Wild's, and this has nothing to do with homerism, just going by numbers and stats.

Spurgeon doesn't even play with Suter, what the **** are you talking about?

Quit comparing our "#4" with your #1.

 

[TaLoN]

Spurgeon doesn't even play with Suter, what the **** are you talking about?

Like I said, he's the perfect example of someone knowing absolutely zero about Wild Defensemen.

Any stat arguing in favor of Wild D-men is just argued away as "plays with Suter" when most of them don't actually play with Suter.

 

[the_fan]

Ok so it's Brodin who plays with Suter, still would take EJ and Barrie over Brodin easily

 

[TaLoN]

Ok so it's Brodin who plays with Suter, still would take EJ and Barrie over Brodin easily

And we would take Brodin over all your remaining D easily, along with Scandella and Spurgeon.

The Wild have very little drop off in quality as you go down the top 4, not so much with the Avs.

 

[the_fan]

And we would take Brodin over all your remaining D easily, along with Scandella and Spurgeon.

The Wild have very little drop off in quality as you go down the top 4, not so much with the Avs.

For now that's fair enough, Beauchemin is much older but still logs tons of ice time as a top pair d, but your guys are younger so they could have an edge there.

Zadorov as i mentioned few times has a potential to become a dominant top pair D, if he reaches that potential, he's better than any of your d-men not named Suter.

All i'm saying is, i watched the 1st round series vs the Hawks and no one really stood out on the Wild blue line, even Suter had a bad series, i saw a lot of Wild fans actually bashing Suter. I think the only one had a decent series on your blue line was Dumba

 

[TaLoN]

For now that's fair enough, Beauchemin is much older but still logs tons of ice time as a top pair d, but your guys are younger so they could have an edge there.

Zadorov as i mentioned few times has a potential to become a dominant top pair D, if he reaches that potential, he's better than any of your d-men not named Suter.

All i'm saying is, i watched the 1st round series vs the Hawks and no one really stood out on the Wild blue line, even Suter had a bad series, i saw a lot of Wild fans actually bashing Suter. I think the only one had a decent series on your blue line was Dumba

That was the 2nd round BTW - we haven't faced Chicago in the first round since the lockout season...

So, you watched a Wild team that lost it's focus and lost in 4 games to the eventual Stanley Cup Champs and based your entire opinion on those 4 games? Completely ignoring the series vs St.Louis? Completely ignoring the 82 regular season games before that?

 

[cgf]

Like I said, he's the perfect example of someone knowing absolutely zero about Wild Defensemen.

Any stat arguing in favor of Wild D-men is just argued away as "plays with Suter" when most of them don't actually play with Suter.

Why do you Wild fans insist on propagating this lie? We have the internet now. We can watch your games. So we all know that every single one of your dmen (prospects included) plays with Suter...isn't that the whole point of playing him 57 minutes a night?...

 

[TaLoN]

Why do you Wild fans insist on propagating this lie? We have the internet now. We can watch your games. So we all know that every single one of your dmen (prospects included) plays with Suter...isn't that the whole point of playing him 57 minutes a night?...

I think a defenseman we just drafted has already played with Suter too, right?

 

[Spurgeon]

For now that's fair enough, Beauchemin is much older but still logs tons of ice time as a top pair d, but your guys are younger so they could have an edge there.

Zadorov as i mentioned few times has a potential to become a dominant top pair D, if he reaches that potential, he's better than any of your d-men not named Suter.

All i'm saying is, i watched the 1st round series vs the Hawks and no one really stood out on the Wild blue line, even Suter had a bad series, i saw a lot of Wild fans actually bashing Suter. I think the only one had a decent series on your blue line was Dumba

Our 1st round series was vs. the Blues.

Suter > EJ

Brodin >/= Barrie (Different players, but both great in the different aspects of the game)

Scandella > Beauchemin

Spurgeon > Zadorov

 

[TaLoN]

Our 1st round series was vs. the Blues.

Suter > EJ

Brodin >/= Barrie (Different players, but both great in the different aspects of the game)

Scandella > Beauchemin

Spurgeon > Zadorov

Or...

Suter > EJ
Brodin >/= Barrie
Scandella > Beauchemin
Spurgeon > Beauchemin
Scandella >> Zadorov
Spurgeon >> Zadorov

 

[Spurgeon]

Or...

Suter > EJ
Brodin >/= Barrie
Scandella > Beauchemin
Spurgeon > Beauchemin
Scandella >> Zadorov
Spurgeon >> Zadorov

That works too.

Or to put it simply:

Wild Defense >>>>>>>>>>>>> Avs Defense

 

[cgf]

I think a defenseman we just drafted has already played with Suter too, right?

How else could his performance have been boosted enough to get drafted?...

And we would take Brodin over all your remaining D easily, along with Scandella and Spurgeon.

The Wild have very little drop off in quality as you go down the top 4, not so much with the Avs.

Beauchemin should still be in that top tier for another season. He did just do a great job while leading the Ducks in TOI in both the regular season as well as in the playoffs. The man is still an excellent skater, defender, breakout/neutral-zone passer; and he brings the pain with a rocket from the point to boot. He'll start running out of gas and his game will fall off of a cliff at some point, but there's a good chance we get 1 more year of legit top pairing play out of him. If we're lucky he has another season of midpairing play in him the year after that, before having to take over Stuart's spot as the oldie on the third pairing. But for this first season him repeating his play from last year isn't an unrealistic expectation, I mean, GMBM did want to keep Beauch for a year or two.

Also feels like Zadorov's awesome earlier season play is getting forgotten a bit because of his sloppier second half play/Risto's excellent close to the season; despite the fact that Zads is still just a baby, and the tank broke his spirits.

How I'd rank our two teams' dmen if I were picking a new team from our two rosters:

Suter
EJ
Brodin/Beauch (I lean towards Beauch for next year if he doesn't slow already; but not by enough to put him above Brodin here, especially since Brodin will crush this comp in the coming seasons)
Barrie
Spurgeon (not quite as good as Barrie, though still really good)
Scandella (the kind of play I hope Beauch can still provide for us in year 2, before his game falls off the cliff that it will)
Zads/Dumba (if we see first half of the season zads for the whole year he moves up a lot; if we see end of the season Dumba for the whole year he moves up a lot)

Now I've listed 5 Wild dmen and 4 Avs, but I thought Dumba and Zads were in pretty similar positions going into this year, both had some really excellent play last year and both have exceptional tools, so I felt like I should mention Dumba when I brought up Zads...even if I'm biased towards Zadorov (spent some time in buffalo and Girgs, Zads, and Foligno were my three favorite young sabres, in decending order).

Or...

Suter > EJ
Brodin >/= Barrie
Scandella > Beauchemin
Spurgeon > Beauchemin
Scandella >> Zadorov
Spurgeon >> Zadorov

...Or
Suter > Zadorov
Brodin < EJ
Scandella < Beauchemin
Spurgeon < Barrie

Avs 3 - Minnesota 1...

sorry, I just really hate the >/< spiel; it's such a silly message board thing that only service to turn discussion into a pissing contest 9 times out of 10.