Don't put words in my mouth. Nothing is my "lone criteria", and as good as TOI is for telling the story of a defenseman's value, it's not nearly as important for forwards. Production is much more important. Besides, most of the guys with more TOI/GP than Matthews only got there by their PK minutes; Matthews was 15th in ESTOI/GP.
Production is not nearly as important for judging a defenseman's value. All you have to do is look at any season and rank the top scoring defensemen and then rank them by TOI and it's pretty clear right away which list contains all the elite defensemen and which one contains a mix of great players and good PP specialists. Production for defensemen is highly situational; the vast majority of them score at a pretty consistent ES rate and the their raw totals are based on their PP time and what caliber of forwards are on their PP.
And no, Hainsey is obviously not better than Rielly. I think we all know that. I think it's mighty strange though, that Rielly isn't trusted with 4-5 more minutes per game than a guy like Hainsey. A true franchise #1 D with the potential to be top-10 in the league certainly would be. A coach's job is to win hockey games and they're paid millions to do it. If Babcock thinks the best formula to win is to have Rielly out there for just 21-22 minutes then I trust that. It does tell us something about how he values them. It's not like Babcock won't play a player for 24+ minutes. Lidstrom, Kronwall, Schneider and Rafalski were all given that much in one or more seasons.
You look at any other elite, consensus top-15 defenseman and their team is putting them out there for 24+ per game. If Rielly is to be ranked that highly, we have to explain what it is about him, the Leafs, or Babcock that makes him an exception. It doesn't seem to be Babcock, and it's not like there's a ton of quality defenders here taking minutes away from him. Don't act like it isn't important. There are no 18-19 minute defensemen who are elite at anything. The good ones rise to the top and get put out on the ice the most.
He's getting good quality of competition, and his zone starts show a good degree of trust. He's That is a good start. Now he needs to do it so well that the coaches can't help but put him out there more and more often. Having a positive goal differential for the first time in his career would help, too. It's not like the Leafs of the past two seasons haven't been a good place to put up a strong +/- for most players.
