I'm gonna come across as a massive homer, but I'm not sure how Klingberg isn't in all of these top 25's. His "defensive issues" are vastly overstated (average, not bad) and he's one of the top offensive threats from the blue line in the league.
147 points in 227 career games and not even 25 yet.
A Stars' bounce back season will help JK in the court of league-wide opinion (as will not having to carry Lindell's rookie dead weight all year)
I think he's a top 25 D, but exactly 25 or at best 20th. Klingberg takes a lot of easy quality competition with easy team mates, and produces a lot on the power play. His defense against weaker competition is great, but against tougher ones, he's exposed a lot, so it averages out. Yes every Dman has more trouble against tougher competition, but even non-elite defensive players such as Karlsson, Subban, Josi, etc. perform miles better against tough competition over Klingberg.
That being said Klingberg's zone adjusted 5 on 5 production is 7th in the league out of 119 players from 2014-2017. He's still an elite producer, but at the same time the Stars have been one of the highest scoring teams since then, and Klingberg takes very easy competition with great team mates. His defense is easily worse than a lot of players as well. For example Hamilton who has done better than Klingberg entirely offensively since that time period, and is arguably better defensively and has actually played against tough competition, I wouldn't even consider a top 25 D, because his defense isn't great, and he rarely plays PK. Klingberg played less PK in 2015-2016 entirely than some players played PK minutes in a single game....
