Who are the top 5 defensive defensemen in the NHL?

[2for1PizzaPastuh]

Think Tanevs, Slavins, etc.

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[Perfect_Drug]

Slavin Toews and Ekholm are up there for me.

 

[shakes the clown]

According to The Athletic, Vlasic from the Hawks is #2.

 

[Pavel Buchnevich]

Adam Fox is the best at defense of all the top point producer defensemen.

One of my favorite true DFD is Mattias Samuelsson.

 

[Spilot23]

Slavin Toews and Ekholm are up there for me.

Would've put Toews there too if it was last year but this year I don't know what's wrong with that Makar-Toews pairing but it's terrible defensively. I know our goalies don't help though.

 

[AppreciateHockey]

Add Gustav Forsling.

 

[80s Kid]

Adam Fox...He just happens to be a really good point producer as well. I'm pretty sure analytics back me up on this as well.

 

[Rowlet]

The Athletic says:

1. Radko Gudas
2. Alex Vlasic
3. Drew Doughty
4. Jake Sanderson
5. Gustav Forsling

 

[Miro4Norris]

Heiskanen is #1 there is no debate. Then comes Ekholm, Forsling, Slavin, McDonagh

 

[Maurice of Orange]

1. Miro Heiskanen
2. Jaccob Slavin
3. Adam Pelech
4. Jonas Brodin
5. Chris Tanev

 

[Slimmy]

Erik Karlsson probably up there in defensive metrics.

 

[Mrb1p]

Heiskanen, Doughty, Slavin, Fox, Guhle, Mcavoy, Brodin, Siegenthaler, Moser come.to mind.

 

[Rabid Ranger]

Heiskanen is #1 there is no debate. Then comes Ekholm, Forsling, Slavin, McDonagh

Nah, there is plenty to debate.

 

[Bobby9]

Slavin, Cernak, Tanev.

Willie Mitchell was wonderful too

 

[Nucks2001]

Tanev, Pelech, McAvoy, Brodin, Spurgeon, Ekholm, Forsling, Toews, Slavin, Weegar.

See a lot of people putting Miro on here and he’s no doubt a great defender. He’s a tier below these guys. I think Miro is the best defender out of the “top dogs” like Makar, Hughes, Fox, Josi, Hedman.

Younger guys that bring more a shutdown game include Sanderson, Power and Byram. Brock Faber also isn’t that bad defensively

 

[PeteEakins]

If Mattias Ekholm is wrong, then I don’t want to be right.

 

[Cup or Bust]

I'm picking Ehholm. Anyone that can finish +40 playing with Bouchard is playing damn good.

 

[WF19]

Homer honorable mention to Mo Seider the guy is playing the toughest minutes of all dmen

 

[Jugitsu]

Any list without Jonas Brodin is an incomplete list.

 

[PettersonHughes]

Gotta shout-out Ian Cole, still one of the underrated defensive D-men IMO (if you can help Tyler Myers redeem himself from being a tire fire with OEL to being an actually reliable defensive D-man, you're pretty good).

 

[The Great Mighty Poo]

Marcus Pettersson and his lack of a chin are severely underrated.

 

[LemonSauceD]

Adam Fox is the best at defense of all the top point producer defensemen.

One of my favorite true DFD is Mattias Samuelsson.

Fox’s defensive metrics are similar to Hughes and Josi.

For defenseman that put up 50-60 points and are elite defensively, I’d say Heiskanen and McAvoy are that.

Also Samuelsson has fallen off considerably in that defensive aspect.

 

[Pavel Buchnevich]

Fox’s defensive metrics are similar to Hughes and Josi.

For defenseman that put up 50-60 points and are elite defensively, I’d say Heiskanen and McAvoy are that.

Also Samuelsson has fallen off considerably in that defensive aspect.

I think you're putting too much into one or two particular metrics from this one season in both situations.

 

[Aladyyn]

Fox’s defensive metrics are similar to Hughes and Josi.

For defenseman that put up 50-60 points and are elite defensively, I’d say Heiskanen and McAvoy are that.

Also Samuelsson has fallen off considerably in that defensive aspect.

That's news to me.

 

[majormajor]

Looking at the last couple years of numbers with these criteria:

1) faces hard D-zone deployments

2) near the top in xGA/60 Rel (relative to teammates).

3) near the top in GA/60 Rel

These players look really good:

Alex Vlasic
Chris Tanev

A surprising name close to them is Juuso Valimaki. Another is Jake McCabe.

Artem Zub and Adam Fox don't have the hardest D zone starts but are much much better than their teammates at limiting xGA and GA.

Slavin surprisingly has team average results with easy zone deployment. Same with Heiskanen. I'm a bit surprised.

Pelech is playing hard minutes and giving up more goals than his teammates.

Radko Gudas is playing easier third pair minutes for the most part, and getting much better results than his teammates - but this is light duty and the other Ducks D he's compared to are largely kids. The raw numbers (not relative) are still good though.

Sanderson's results are relatively good but not too a huge degree, and being better than Chabot isn't saying much. And his raw numbers aren't good.

Ekholm's results are relatively good but it's really hard to tell when his usage is so offensive on the ice with McDavid and company. I'm giving it to him because of the eye test.

Hampus Lindholm is facing hard D zone starts and is still well ahead of his Bruins teammates in both categories, which is hard to do on a team like that.

Forsling's two year numbers don't stand out but he has by far the best raw goals against this year, so he's in.

So after all of that, my top ten (in no order) is:

Forsling
A Vlasic
Lindholm
Zub
Fox
Tanev
Valimaki
McCabe
Gudas
Ekholm