The Hockey PDOcast - Episode 109: Top 10 Defencemen

Episode Date: October 25, 2016

Andrew Berkshire joins the show to continue our Top 10 series, this time focusing in on the best defencemen in the NHL. Here’s a quick rundown of the topics covered: 1:43 Honourable mentions 5:02 Shea Weber's omission 7:45 Anaheim starting the year without Lindholm 11:30 Washington's best defenceman 13:00 John Klingberg personifies the Dallas Stars 16:00 OEL being overlooked down in Arizona 18:20 The overwhelming force that is Brent Burns 22:18 Why don't people take Shattenkirk seriously? 24:35 The hate has gone too far on Drew Doughty 28:30 Kris Letang does everything for the Penguins 31:30 The Top 4 This episode is brought to you by Freshbooks, an online accounting service designed to save time and help avoid all of the stresses that come with running a small business. They’re currently offering a free 30-day trial to listeners of our show at Freshbooks.com/PDOcast (just remember to enter “Hockey PDOcast” in the ‘How You Heard About Us’ section). Every episode of this podcast is available on iTunes, Soundcloud, Stitcher and can also be streamed straight from this website. Make sure to subscribe to the show so that you don’t miss out on any new episodes as they’re released. All ratings and reviews of the show are greatly appreciated. Thanks for listening! See acast.com/privacy for privacy and opt-out information. Learn more about your ad choices. Visit podcastchoices.com/adchoices If you'd like to gain access to the two extra shows we're doing each week this season, you can subscribe to our Patreon page here: www.patreon.com/thehockeypdocast/membership If you'd like to participate in the conversation and join the community we're building over on Discord, you can do so by signing up for the Hockey PDOcast's server here: https://discord.gg/a2QGRpJc84 The views and opinions expressed in this podcast are those of the hosts and guests and do not necessarily reflect the position of Rogers Media Inc. or any affiliate.

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And joining me as a familiar voice over the past few weeks, it's Andrew Berkshire, Andrew, what's going on, man? Not much. Just, you know, ready to get right into her. Yes, yes. We're going to do the top 10 defensemen today. And I spent a lot of time deliberating whether we should just stretch us out and do top 20 like you did over at sportsnet.com. Just because as I was compiling my list, once I started getting into that sort of like eight, nine, ten range, I had like 15 guys to choose from. And I knew that a lot of them would get cut. and then I know that people will complain about why we hate their favorite players and their favorite teams.

And honestly, some of these guys are so good that it is a little subjective that you could easily sneak them into that top 10. And I wouldn't really complain. Yeah, absolutely. And there's also the left-right thing, which, you know, makes it harder to differentiate just for the 10. But, yeah, it's tough. I feel like no matter what the cutoff is with defensemen, it starts to get tough to, like, actually make the cutoff because there's, there's got to be at least like 45. really good defensemen in the NHL. Yeah. And where did you have

Shea Weber on your list? Was it 47? 47. Yeah, I should have said 47 just to avoid people getting angry. And you picking a number like 45 was, it rang a bell that it's probably a very specific thing and he said 45 good ones. So it says a lot about your thoughts on Shay Weber. Yeah, it's all personal.

I think that I wanted to lump a few guys together. We can have a quick discussion on them that didn't make my top 10 that I think are fantastic and generally don't get enough attention public like league wide just because maybe they don't necessarily put up the big counting stats or you know they're never mentioned amongst these sort of guys that familiar names we'll get to in a bit but whether it's guys like mark edward vass or Anton strawman or i don't know you go on down the list like uh i know that you had brian campbell very high on yours i i might have had him in my top 10 honestly if we've done this

before the season started, but just how weird the start of this year has been has bumped him down a bit on my list. So guys like that, who you might not necessarily think of as being, like, the top 20 guys at their position or whatever are pretty clearly entrenched in that 11 to 20 range, and I felt pretty good about that. Yeah, absolutely. I think Velazek ranked quite a bit lower in my rankings, but Stralman was really, really high. Jelmerson as well was not super high, but like his defensive ranking was really, really good. Chris Tenev's defensive ranking was, I think,

second in the league behind Mark G. Ordano, really, really good defensive player, but again, doesn't bring much on offense. There's a lot of guys who, not necessarily are one-dimensional, but stand out in one aspect of the game that people don't really talk about very much. Right.

And we should kind of point out that, you know, get the common thing from people online. Well, it says defense in their job description. So pretty clearly, you know, they better be good at defending. And there is many different ways that you can accomplish that, especially in 2016, where, you know, some of the guys in this list that we're going to discuss might not necessarily seem like guys that are, you know,

your quote-unquote stay-at-home, reliable, kind of conservative defensemen. But generally, if you have the puck on your stick, it means the opponent doesn't. So technically, as long as you're doing that more often and then not you're doing a good job of defending just because the puck's not in your own zone and going into your own net. So any way you accomplish that is good in my books.

Absolutely. And I think there's something to be said for like how much of defensive impact is actual defending, right? Like I don't think we know 100% like what portion it is, but it's definitely not all of it. And like a lot of people who say, oh, well, defenseman, he has to be great defense, don't understand that, you know, like I would say transition makes a bigger impact on overall, like,

goals against than actual defensive play, like in the zone, uh, defending without the puck. Yeah. And I think people generally don't, you know, disgust us enough. But it's really, it's really tough to defend in your own zone consistently without either getting buried in terms of goals or shots or, or taking a lot of penalties, right? Like generally the guys are so skilled these days with the puck on their stick that if you're just chasing around in your own zone, you're going to get yourself into a lot of trouble. And you're sort of going to wear yourself out and then put your team behind in terms of you're going to get tired.

You're going to just dump the puck out, meekly go change. And then all of a sudden the guys that come on the ice next are also going to wind up defending in their own zone. And it's sort of this like endless cycle. So you really want to try and avoid doing that as much as possible. Yeah, absolutely. Out of curiosity, where did you have Shay Weber? I honestly did not even. I mean, I don't want to say I didn't consider him for my top sort of 20 guys that I put together because I considered everyone.

But I could pretty clearly find 25 to 30 guys that I feel much more comfortable with putting in this discussion. So I'm not sure if he's 47. He might be somewhere in the 30s or something like that. And listen, like that's good. That's very good. That's a very good player. It's nothing to scoff at. But I'm sure that some people will take issue with the fact that he's not firmly in our top 10 because like I feel like there's some people out there.

he's in the top five and it's a no-brainer. Yeah, I've seen people say that he's like the best defenseman in the NHL, which is kind of nuts. But, you know, for any Habs fans listening, Dmitri also hates your favorite player. So don't just yell at me on Twitter. The weird thing is, like, that's not even like a necessarily like a numbers-based argument. Like, are these people watching the game? Like, how can you watch someone like Eric Carlson or even like a Drew Doughty, for example,

who will discuss and then watch Shea Weber and think that Shea Weber, just purely from watching those two guys play, being like, yes, Shea Weber is definitely better as his job than Drew Doughty is. Like watching Drew Doughty just skate laps around people and get the puck out of his own, effortlessly and do all sorts of things getting it to his teammates. Like it just, it seems like a very silly thing. It's not even necessarily a numbers thing. It's just straight up, just everything put together. Yeah, I totally agree.

And especially if you watch Weber without the puck, you can see like his conservative tendencies, like he's not going to be caught out of position very often because he doesn't really move in the defensive zone. Like he sticks in front of the net in like a little square in front of the net between the circles and he does not go for the puck unless he absolutely 100% will get that puck before anybody else. He takes zero risks and, you know, obviously guys like Michel Tarion love that. But if you don't take any risks, you don't ever clear the zone. And, you know, there is a tangible impact that Weber has. as on high danger scoring chances,

he definitely cuts them down a little bit. But because he puts so much more pressure on his partner and the forwards to get the puck, you end up getting stuck in your zone for more time and just based on pure shot volume, even though the chances against their lower quality, he's still on the ice for more goals against. So it's kind of like, yes,

he does have a strength in defending without the puck, but it doesn't end up mattering, because of the way he plays. Yes. Yeah. No, that's well said. All right, let's get into this top 10. Tenth on my list is a guy who's somehow not playing these days, even though he's fully healthy,

and that's Hampus Linholm. And I'm not sure where you had him on your list, but I'm sure it's pretty high as well. And it's just an unconscionable decision by the Ducks to start the year without a top 10 defenseman, who's pretty clearly their best guy in the mix just because of they can't figure out the money situation. Yeah, I had Hampas Lim home at 10th on my list for Sportsnet, but I moved him up to number eight. And, you know, like you said, this is a bad decision by the Anaheim ducks. And apparently they're only apart by like 500K over a certain amount of time, but the ducks need to move somebody out. But, you know, like, as somebody who's experienced this before, when you let your top defensemen kind of get angry at you and you're letting them miss games because you're not willing to give them the money,

it doesn't work out long term very often. Well, especially when you're paying very nice sums of money to guys like Clayton Stoner and Kevin BXA and then coming back to him and being like, yeah, listen, man, we just don't have the money to give you what you want, so you're going to have to take a bit less. Like, they don't, I understand they own his RFA rights, so they have a little bit of leverage there, but not necessarily that much, considering, you know,

just watching this team play right now, it's so clear that they desperately need Linholm back in the lineup. and he's probably just, I'm sure he's working out a lot and working in his game, but he's probably just sitting at home watching these games kind of laughing to himself and texting with his agent because every time the ducks play, it seems to increase his value and put the spotlight on how much they need him. Yeah, absolutely. And like, what interests me about Linholm is that he's a little bit like Anton Straulman

earlier in his career where, you know, he's not putting up the gaudy point totals. But if you watch him and you look at the, like the analytics, he has a big impact on offense, but he just isn't getting the points right now. And I think that's a category of defensemen that I really like because they end up being underappreciated league-wide in that they do drive offense, but they're not necessarily getting the points. They're just creating the possibility for their teammates to create offense in a way, you know? And eventually, Stroman got put on the power play in Tampa Bay, and now he's a pretty

good point producer. But for a long time, he was like a 20. 25, 30 point guy, and everybody kind of thought that he was mostly a defensive guy, but his transition play made a big difference in the offensive game for the Rangers when he was there and the Hamph v. Lightning now, and I think Hamper's Land Home is in that mold, and as he gets a little bit older and a little bit more responsibility, I think we'll probably see him jump up to like 45 points, maybe even crack 50 a couple times. Yeah, I'm glad that we're at the point in sort of our understanding of the game

and things that we look at for this position. Understanding that, you know, to put up Goddy point totals, you generally, you know, you need to be really good, but you also need to be put in a certain position and certain things need to go right that might not necessarily be in your own control to let that happen. And these days we can sort of appreciate

what Lynn Holm brings to the table without looking at that stuff. I mean, you know, he doesn't block a lot of shots. He doesn't throw a lot of hits. He's not even that high in terms of like takeaways or stuff like that. So none of this sort of kind of old-school, real-time stats stuff necessarily points to the fact that he should be this high up on the list. But you watch him and he is one of those guys, sort of like a Chris Hanna, where, you know,

they just do everything well. Like you watch Linholm play and he's so smooth at defending his own zone and getting the puck out and distributing it. And it seems like everything is done with a purpose and with a plan. And he's so smooth at accomplishing that. And there's very few guys in the league that you can say that about. Yeah, absolutely. Moving on from Linholm, my number 10 was actually Matt Niskinan.

And he's a guy that, like, I thought was overrated when he went to unrestricted free agency after his couple years with the penguins. But man, has he ever blossomed into a great player? And, you know, late bloomer, uh, I thought he was good with, uh, with Dallas, but, you know, like a good third pairing, maybe second pairing tweener kind of guy. Right. But he's turned into a like full on number one defenseman. and I think he's the best defenseman on the capitals by like a mile. Yeah. No,

I agree with that for sure. And I think that, you know, popular sentiment would probably be that John Carlson is just because he plays on that top power play unit and he scored a lot of goals in the playoffs. But it's pretty clear than Niskin and does so much more for that team. Yeah, great skater,

surprisingly strong as well. You know, like he's tough to get in, uh, on offense against. He's a, he's a really good player. And I don't know.

he doesn't get much press, but man, Matt Niskenen, I thought he was way overpaid when that contract happened, but now I think, as far as UFA contracts go, that was a severe underpayment for what the capitals ended up getting. Yeah, well, don't forget, they also got Brooks Orpec that same summer, so. This is true. They kind of undid that. Yes, the balance themselves out. No, Niskenen's awesome. He wasn't in my top 10, but he's definitely sort of in that, in that next tier, in that consideration in the 11 to 20 range. Number nine, I had this, I had this, I think you have this guy a bit too low on your list, and that's John Klingberg. Make the case for why Klingberg isn't a top-10 defenseman.

The main thing for Klingberg was his defensive play was a little bit spotty, and I think that's just an age thing. You know, if we were to re-rank even halfway through this year, you'd probably see him jump up quite a bit. It's just one of those things where, you know, young players take a while to learn, like, the intricacies of the defensive game, and I think one of the other things was he wasn't using the penalty. kill so he got zeros across the board for for the data that I use there um it's just a he got

hurt because he's young that's the only thing I think I still had him at 19 which you know the difference between 19 and 10 in my rankings was not very large it's kind of like people got upset that um Roman Yose wasn't on there which you know I think Roman Yose you know he has a severe defensive deficiency but his transition games just ridiculous but Yose Eossey Ellis and Ekholm, well, Ekholm was above them, but they ranked 21, 22, and 23 on the ranking, so you can see how strong the Predators' defense is. But yeah, I think Klingberg just got hurt for age. Next year he'd probably be in the top 10 because his development is ridiculous.

Yeah, and, you know, you mentioned the age he's 24, but he also was a forward for a long time. So I feel like he's in terms of defensemen years, he's so young. And you're right, I feel like in the next couple years, could really blossom. And speaking of, you mentioned Matt Niskin and the good contract, they got him on, uh, the stars are going to be laughing pretty hard with the, uh, the long term contract. They got him to sign after his first breakout season. Yeah, absolutely. And what did the stars need more than John Klingberg? You know, like what they were building there, everything looks great at forward, but they really needed a John Klingberg and there he is, you know, like he's the future number one stud who can

do everything on the back end. He's, he's such a great player. That's a great point. He really sort of embodies just everything that makes that Dallas Stars team the beautiful, frenetic offensive juggernaut that they are. Like, you watch this team play, and it seems like nothing's happening. And then I feel like the other team kind of just like settles down a bit and goes, okay, we can take a deep breath, maybe get a change going here and relax a little bit. They might just dump the puck in and we'll kind of get into this conservative back-and-forth affair

that we're used to playing. And then all of a sudden, the stars are just joking. jump in and you know, Klingberg makes a great pass out of his own zone and all of a sudden four guys are just rushing the zone and you're just like, how did that happen in a blink of an eye? And he really allows them to do a lot of that. And without him, I'm not sure they'd be the team that they are. Yeah, absolutely. And plus there's that, you know, I think everybody's favorite thing to watch last year was was Klingberg, Sagan, and Ben, and three on three. Because when you put those three on the ice, it just wasn't even fair.

Insane. Eighth overall, I have Oliver Ekman-Larsen, who, when I started doing this list, I actually had him quite a bit lower, and I'm not sure why. Just for whatever reason, I thought, you know, I know all about him in terms of his exploits and the things he does well and how highly regarded he is, but I just had guys higher on him. But once I did a little bit of more digging and, and Link looked into it, I think that he deserves to be this high on this list. And it might be kind of overlooked a little bit just because he has been playing for a team that. hasn't been very competitive. So his sort of superficial numbers might be dragged down a little bit, but once you kind of look at the relative stuff compared to his teammates,

it's clear that he's doing his very best to try and pull everyone up together with him. Yeah, I actually had Oliver Ekman-Larsen there as well, which I adjusted from my original list where he was 11th. I dropped off Brian Campbell, who was originally number 8, partially because of age, you know, looking forward, he's not likely to improve. and partially because of the start this season. I don't know if Brian Campbell's actually been bad

or if Kenville has just kind of lost his mind a little bit because it seems like he has a lot of trouble figuring out that defense outside of Keith Seabrook and Jolmerson. Like they didn't like Johnny O'Dooia and then Johnny O'Dooey just went and played a big role in winning a Stanley Cup. Brian Campbell has been, you know, a fantastic player in Florida for a long while now.

And for whatever reason, Quenville decided to put him on his off side, which he's never played before in his career, and he struggled. Then he put him at Forward, and it's like, is this really Brian Campbell's fault? I don't know,

but maybe it's the age thing, kind of getting to him finally, even though he looked ageless. But Egman Larson, you know, I think he's a really strong defensive player, really decent in transition, and obviously he's probably the best goal scorer in terms of defensemen in the NHL right now.

Yeah. No, he's very good. I'm glad that they finally are starting to get him a little bit of help in terms of they obviously brought in Goligowski this summer and hopefully they can get a little bit of help there because I feel like it's really just been a one-man show for a few years now. Yeah, absolutely. I love that Golgowski move for Arizona.

I think that that's going to take a little bit of pressure off of Ekman-Larsen and hopefully help the team grow a little bit from the defensive end. So who do you have at number seven then? number seven i have brent burns which people probably think is low but the reason why i have burns low is because he still kind of plays like a forward and but what i mean by that is like he is a great offensive player and in terms of like one-on-one defending also really good right but when he has the puck he is a little bit messy and careless with it and like he actually had the lowest past success rate in the entire league last year on defense which is like

you know, not a good thing, especially in the defensive zone. He was also the lowest. So when you're creating a ton of turnovers with your passes in the defensive zone, you are going to allow a ton of high-scoring or high-dinger chances against. But obviously he overcomes that with his offensive game. But he plays a little bit like Eric Carlson, where he's given an amount of freedom that might end up hurting him on the defensive end. You know, in the end anyway,

but I love the way you play just because it's exciting. But if I was going to choose a defenseman, there are guys that I'd take over him. Yeah, no, I think that's fair. I mean, I have him fifth on my list, so not necessarily too much higher. I do think that he does play like a forward.

I think that sort of some of those defensive concerns in terms of you mentioned the one-on-one play are generally overblown by sometimes people on TV and on the message boards because once he does get into those one-on-one situations, he can skate and he's really good with using his stick to kind of try and disrupt, you know, carries in against and stuff like that. And he obviously has that big body so he can get in the way in block shots and kind of snuff out opportunities single-handedly. So he is good in those situations.

Sometimes you can get a little bit lost. And you're right with being a bit too loose with a puck in his own zone. I think that Chris LaTang, who I also have high on this list, is someone like that as well where you watch them play and they're so talented and so good. gifted and you watch them do all these incredible things. But then a bit too often for my liking, they kind of resort to just being reckless for whatever reason with the puck. They kind of just like, without looking, just flinging around and it puts them in some uncomfortable situation sometimes. So that should knock them down a little bit. But the pros just outweigh the con so much with Burns where he's such an overwhelming offensive force that he'd really have to be a massive liability

to bump him out of the top ten. Yeah, absolutely. And his shot is just ridiculous. I don't think it's in the hardest of the league, but it is so pinpoint accurate. Like the shots that he gets through from like way out, like on the blue line, and he'll get through like four screens and just pick a corner. I don't know if anybody else in the league can do that from the back end. It's almost like whenever Patrick Kane circles around the zone and then he'll let like this floating wrister go from the blue line and it finds its way through five guys into the top corner. it's almost like Brent Burns does that, but with a slap shot. Yeah, no, and he's the perfect compliment as sort of the third wheel to that Pavelsky Thornton combo, especially in the power play where, you know, it's pick your

poison. If you give him too much space, he'll gladly shoot it. And he doesn't need to, you know, the thing that I love about Burns is you watch him and he never really needs to kind of wind up and generate a crazy hard slap shot to get, to get, you know, the puck through and to get it on net and try and score. Like, he can just kind of do that quick snapshot, which makes it so difficult to defend because he doesn't really telegraph it at all. So if you, he only really needs like a split second to get it off. And, and I mean, he, he loves to use it. He had 350 shots last year, which is an insane

total for defenseman. I mean, that's an insane total for anyone not named Alex Ovechkin. So, no, he's a, he's a high volume guy and he makes a lot, a lot of happen for that team. So I feel pretty comfortable having him high this high on the list. Who, who's next in your list? the next on my list, it was really close with Burns as to who was going to be higher, but it's Kevin Shattonkirk. And for whatever reason, lots of people don't like this guy. I don't get it. No matter where he plays in the lineup, he's extraordinary. You know, like his offensive numbers are ridiculous.

His defensive numbers are pretty good, too. And in terms of transition, he's like right up there with the top in the league. I think he's the Blue's best defenseman, although he might be overtaken by Perako on the soon side, or well, he might be traded at some point during this year or in the offseason. But I really like this guy. And for some reason, you know, like USA hockey doesn't really like him. I think he's the best American defenseman in the league.

It's really weird how little press this guy gets, like in terms of positive press anyway. A lot of people will compliment his offense, but like his all-around game is really strong. Yeah. No, I definitely think that he's the blue's best defenseman, and that's probably going to be a controversial opinion for some because Petrangelo is more highly regarded for whatever reason. He was always on Team Canada, and he's always kind of propped up as this guy that does everything for the Blues. But you watch them play, and it's Shaddenkirk that's definitely moving the needle more for everyone involved. So I don't know what it is. I mean, he looks pretty impressive when you watch him just purely based on the eye test.

So I'm not sure why people would be down on him. I mean, I say that as someone I had him like in my top 15. I didn't have him as high as you did. But I'm a big fan as well. So yeah, I can't explain it. Do you think maybe part of it is that he's not a great skater? Because he's definitely not the quickest. And he kind of like, if you look at his headshot,

he looks more like a police chief than the hockey player. But, you know, he's kind of got like that Phil Kessel quality where he doesn't look like he's in shape. but he's there. You know, like he's going to beat you every time. I think that's fair. That's definitely part of it. I mean, it looks like he shouldn't be as good as he is,

but then, you know, you just keep watching and then you look at what he's actually put together in terms of the resume, and it's pretty impressive. So, okay, so you had Chatton Kirk sixth then? Yep. Okay. So who do you have, who do you have fifth? Fifth, I have Drew Doughty,

which will be a controversial one because he just won the Norris. And, you know, I don't think that he deserved to win it over Eric Carlson, but I took a deep dive on Dowdy after the regular season ended. And I do understand where people are coming from with voting him there because he basically had like a mistake free season. I think we touched on it when we were looking at the centers, but him and Kopitar had the highest past success rates in the league for their positions. And Dowdy just like, he just did not turn over the puck last year at all. and he played a ton of minutes. He didn't play much with Jake Muzin, which was like a big change.

So he was carrying around like Braden McNabb, I think that's his name. You know, not a very good player. Like, you know, I watch a lot of hockey and I'm not even sure that's his name. You know, like he's like the depth in L.A. is not very good. And to be fair, Doughty plays mostly with the top lines. He doesn't, you know, support the fourth line like, Nashville used Jay Weber for with Paul Gostad and Montreal used P.K. Suben for, but he's just incredible and played mistake-free hockey and still drove offense. So I totally understand where

people are coming from with Drew Doughty and I think he's fantastic. Yeah, no, Doughty's awesome. I feel like we definitely sort of lost the plot a little bit last year with, because, you know, everyone was so busy defending Eric Carlson and, you know, justifiably. So, um he, Eric Carlson was the best defenseman in the season in, in the NHL last year. There isn't really an argument otherwise, but,

uh, Dowdy, had a, good, good, good year, man. He's, uh,

he does everything well and, and, and, uh, he doesn't have a lot of help on that team. I mean, it's funny, Dean Lombardi's got,

come under attack recently for some of the, uh, ridiculous things he said. And, and, uh, you know, last year after,

after they lost, uh, in terms of their exit interview, he was discussing about how, you know, he lamented that, the, the team wasn't fast enough on the blue line.

It's like, well, then why'd you bring in Luke Shannon and Rob Skadari as your big trade deadline pickups? Like, yeah, of course you guys need more team speed on the back end. I mean, Doughty is amazing. He really, he's like the opposite of Kevin Shaddenkirk in the regard that you, you watch him play. And it's like, everything just happens so smoothly and so easily that it's like, I feel like, it's a bit surprising that sometimes people don't get on his case for, for, for, looking like he's not trying hard enough

just because he makes it look so effortless. Well, and it's also funny that he's a phenomenal skater and never seems to get tired, but then you look at him and again, like he's got that little pooch in his tummy. You know, he doesn't look like he's in great shape, but man, I'd put him up against any ripped guy

in the league in terms of endurance and overall fitness because he just gets it done. He's a specimen, you know? and it's unfortunate that the nature of arguments on the internet is that in order to you know prove that eric carlson is the best in the league which he is uh people kind of run dowdy down or at least that's the perception and people think uh that analytics focus people think that doubty's terrible when the opposite is true like he's i don't think there's many people who watch the game or uh you know like incorporate

analytics into their evaluations that have Drew Doughty outside of the top five. Like, I would be very surprised. Yeah. To, if anybody did. Well, it's just, it's just hard to find flaws in his game, really. I mean, he really does everything well. Before we get into sort of into deeper into this top five, a guy I wanted to discuss quickly

that, I know you don't have this high, but it's Chris Latang. We mentioned him a bit earlier. And I'm kind of curious why you had him so low on your, on your sports center. list. I will check his numbers. I think you had him like 19th or 20th. Yeah, he finished 19th. And I think the main thing was, yeah, defensive play. Kind of the same thing with Burns, although it seems like he's not as good one-on-one

as Burns is, which I think that's kind of a function of Burns is gigantic and also fast and has a good stick. Whereas, you know, Lattang is a great skater and has a good stick, but he can't really muscle guys as well. Just style of play, I guess, pushes him down. And in terms of offense, he puts up a lot of numbers, but in terms of like on the ice, off the ice, goals for, goals against,

his on ice goals for, he doesn't push the play as much as you would think. And other guys rank ahead of him in that regard. So like Klingberg, for example, his impact on his team's offense was a lot larger than La Teng's was, which is crazy to think because Le Teng's one of the biggest point-producing defensemen, but he's one of those guys that he gets involved in a lot of goals, but the overall number of goals scored are not as high as you would think.

That's fair. Yeah, something that would knock him down my list or kind of give me trepidation in terms of putting him really high is that he does miss a lot of time. I mean, looking at his game logs, he's basically good for at least, 10 to 15 missed games per year. And that's a problem, especially for that penguins team that relies on him so much. But I don't know, maybe I'm just being a little clouded by how insanely good he was towards sort of the second half of last year when the penguins really turned it around because

I remember kind of doing a little bit of a deep dive and looking at his splits under Mike Johnson and then under Mike Sullivan. And it was remarkable. I mean, he was playing like 28, 29 minutes a night. And it was like a point a game. and shooting a ton and he was kind of in the middle of everything that was going right for the penguins.

So, I mean, they rely on him so much. And hopefully he can stay on the ice more often than not because the penguins are really fun to watch when everyone's healthy and everything's clicking and he's a big reason for that. Yeah, absolutely. And I think it's worth pointing out that, like, the penguins decor is not good outside of Lutang.

Like, they're a mobile group so they can kind of fit into Mike, John or not Johnson, but Mike Sullivan's system, and it works really well. Right. But like, without Chris LaTang there, running things like a general, I think it'd be a total mess. He's so important to how that back end works and he plays so many minutes. I think that's worth pointing out.

Yep. All right. So we're in your top four now. Give me your number four. I'm guessing that our top four will be pretty similar. I've got Victor Headman. I have Victor Headman second, actually. Ooh.

Is that a hot take? No, no, I don't think so. I think the top four are all pretty close. And I made one change from my list, which is more biased than anything. But Victor had been like, man, what can this guy not do? He's basically like, and the reason why I have him ahead of Drew Dowdy is I think he's like, Drew Dowdy, but six, six. Yeah. There's not even much to say.

He's just incredible. Well, I mean, and that's a good campaign slogan for Victor Hedman. Drew Doughty for just 6'6. No, and you discuss how, you know, with Doughty and Latang, there's not much behind them, and that's what makes them so important to their teams. And Anton Straubman is awesome, but obviously last year in the playoffs, he was either out or when he came back, he definitely wasn't himself. And it was just kind of a little jarring to watch Victor Hedman just take on

the type of responsibility that he did and just do it seamlessly without really falling off at all. I mean, he was just insane. Everything was running through him and the lightning were doing really well while that was the case. And I don't know, the thing that kind of bugs me with him is that the reason why he hasn't been high up these Norris lists every year is because, and you know, this might be a smart kind of long-term plan by them, but they never really ride him like some of these other guys do. I mean, he's generally playing around that 22, maybe 20s. 23 minute per game range, which is really good. But then some of these other guys, you see them, they're clearly over 25. And, you know, that might be just a good plan by John Cooper, realizing that he is a bigger

guy and you want to keep him healthy and you don't want him to wear himself out during the regular season, considering this team does have Stanley Cup aspirations. So as a big picture thing, that's probably good for both him and the lightning. But that's the one big issue that I have sort of with his statistical resume. It's that I wish he played a little bit more. Yeah, and that's something that's bothered me for a few years because, like, I think he's shown that he can do that. I think Guy Boucher actually played him more than John Cooper does, which is like, you know, he was younger and less experienced. But, you know, maybe it's just keeping him fresh and maybe it's because he's so big and they look at, you know, some other big guys around the league.

But I don't know, he kind of, he doesn't have like the Chris Pronger kind of game that, you know, he could play like 35 minutes. but I think he could play like Zadano Chara minutes. You know, like it's not like that hurts Zadano Chara. And like now Chara looks like he's really struggling, but he's, what, 39 years old? So two years ago, even, Charra was still very, very good among the top 20 defensemen in the league, I would say. So it's not like they need to worry about Victor Hedman declining at an early age. I would take advantage because these are their prime years, you know. and I don't think there's any reason why, you know,

Alex Peter Angelo should be playing more minutes than Victor Hedman, you know, especially with the D-Core, like the bottom four that Tampa Bay has below headman and strawman. And by bottom four, I mean bottom four, because I don't think they have a top four. They just have an elite first pair and four, you know, mediocre defensemen. Yeah. No, I've criticized. Sort of their, I don't know, just the guys that they've brought in to surround those guys because, you know, for a smart team that realizes that, you know, you got to play fast and size doesn't really matter.

They seem to try to compensate for their smaller forwards with these big lumbering defensemen who can't really move and whether it's a Braden Coeburn or Jason Garrison and so on and so on. And I kind of wish that they had more around him, but it's good to see that at least this year so far, it is only five games where he's playing 24 and a half minutes a night. Hopefully that's a good sign that they're going to really just kind of ride him moving forward because, yeah, he's not even 26 years old yet, but this is eighth season in NHL, which it seems crazy. But I'm glad that we're getting to witness the full Victor Headman experience. Who do you have next on this list? On the next I have Mark G. Ordano, who, again, for two years, he was like basically almost guaranteed a Norris trophy and then got injured towards the end of the season. season and fell off. And then last year, I thought he had a really good season and nobody really paid attention to him anymore. His age is definitely not optimal in terms of going forward. But

man, that guy tough as nails. I think he's the best defensive defenseman in the NHL. And he still puts up like gaudy offensive numbers, incredible shot. I don't ever see him make mistakes with pinches. I feel like that's one thing that stands out with him is like when he makes a pinch, He either gets the puck or, like, he can find a way to get back if he's beat. Like, he's a really, really smart player and just, like, cerebral in a way. And he doesn't get enough credit for it. Yeah. No, and it's funny.

I mean, you look at his career and the trajectory is strange, especially for a guy that's high up on this list, where he wasn't really an NHL regular until he was 25 years old and didn't play 20 minutes in it until he was 27. So it's, it's, it was kind of a little bit of a late bloomer, but it's, it's worked out well for the, for both him and the flames. The one issue I have with him a little bit is he is a bit prone to taking quite a few penalties. And I wish that for a guy that's so important to his team as he is, that he'd stay out of the box a little bit more. But it's sort of, I guess, part of his game and part of his character to play on the edge a little bit. So, I mean, the things he puts on the table are so far outweigh,

the things that he takes off of it. So it's kind of nitpicking. But once you're this high up this list, you kind of have to look for kind of little factors that are going to separate these guys. But Giordano, uh, Giordano is pretty awesome. Yeah, he is. And if you don't like penalties, you won't like my number two very much. Oh, yeah. Well, I mean, I, I have P.K. Subban third. So, um, listen, he's, P. P.K. Suban's awesome. I'll give you a few minutes here coming up to just kind of, uh, wax poetic about him because I know you're a huge P. K.C. Subban guy. but I'm just so happy to see that things are, he's having a fun time in Tennessee, man.

I mean, the other day, he was at a Tennessee Titans game and just took his shirt off and just started pouring water on himself and going nuts and pumping up the crowd. And, I mean, I just don't understand how people cannot like this guy. I mean, he's everything that's right with this world and, you know, the youth and the excitement and the energy. And he brings it on to the ice and with his play. and he's so fun to watch.

And I feel pretty good having him this high up on my list. Yeah, he's where hockey's going. And as I hinted, P.K. Suban is my number two. And he was number three behind Girodano on my list statistically. But I bumped him up for two reasons. One is age. And number two is last season was heavily weighted in that analysis. And P.K. Suban played most of last season with not a torn, but a sprained MCL.

and that really cut down his mobility. And the biggest drop down in him in his play was his transition game. And you can see that. I think he ranked 12 among defensemen where he was number two in offense and like number six, I think, in defense. So I think that that was pretty obvious that it did cut him down and cut down, cut down his ability to be as good as he can be. And I guess a third, which is kind of bias,

is I think Michel Tarion really made him a worse play. over the last couple of years, you can look at, in terms of his transition play, earlier in his career, the first year that he, the Tarian was there, when Chris Bouchet was tracking zone exits

and that kind of stuff, P.K. Suban dumped the puck out, like 11% of the time when he was exiting the zone, which was one of the best marks in the league. And last year, it was like 28% of the time, which was one of the worst marks in the league. And that kind of tendency doesn't happen. to a player unnaturally.

You know, like, especially a player like P.K. Suvan, who likes to take risks and likes to make those great plays out of the zone. That's something that was beaten into him. And already you can see, like, his game in Nashville, I think he's down to 19% dumpouts. I think we're going to see the old Pke that won the Norris come back a little bit.

And maybe he'll be a little bit more careful in terms of what plays he makes. But I think he's been held back, you know? Like, they had one of the best players in the league on their back end. And instead of letting him go and making the best impact he could on the team, they just put a leash on him and probably a choke chain for whatever he would make a mistake. And I hope in Nashville we get to see the real potential of what P.K. Suban can be because I think that he's, I think he could challenge Eric Carlson.

I don't know if he can, you know, match him at this point because I think he has been held back enough that some things have like rooted into his decision making that maybe won't get out for a couple more years and by then he's you know no longer in his prime years but man i i just i just find it sad that they've had this guy that he's everything you want in a player on and off the ice and they just they never accepted him and you know like i was talking to some people recently uh that know him really well and they were saying like you know all the unfair criticism over the six years in Montreal, it all rolled off his back until the trade. Like, that was the first time that PK actually got hurt by something that was said about him.

And it was, you know, the rumors that the HAB's organization were spreading about how his teammates hated them, which are categorically false from conversations that I've had with different players, you know, that he was saying things about Andre Markov behind his back, which like Andrei Markov will tell you his garbage. It's just the personal attacks and the trade, he only ever wanted to be a Montreal Canadian. I'm sure he'll have fun in Nashville, and he's starting to accept that,

and, you know, being bombastic there, and they seem to love it, so that's good. But I think that this trade away from Montreal, actually hurt him emotionally. And you can see, as he kept on getting asked about the trade, you know, in training camp, he was getting progressively more blunt, about how he felt about it.

And I think it's going to be a couple years before he's totally over it. Yeah, that's fair. And it's a good transition to the guy we have number one on this list, Eric Carlson, in the sense that I'm not sure what it is, but people just can't, some people just can't seem to get over sort of the obvious glaring mistakes, especially when they lead to great chances or goals against, because I guess it makes sense just from a sort of a human perspective, a cognitive or a bias perspective.

it's easy to kind of point back and look at that and be like aha like this is where this guy messed up whereas some of these other kind of more conservative guys like a shay weber or whoever else you want to name um they do all these kind of subtle things that hurt the team in the long run and it's much tougher to sort of identify those and kind of pick them apart um so i guess it makes sense that that's why people would take so much issue with them but i mean it's it seems so silly to me kind of kind of look at those miscues every once in a while while not also factoring in the five or six other great things that happen in the meantime, right? Like it's you got to take the good with the bad.

And for Carlson and Suban, they make so many things happen for their teams that it just seems like kind of nitpicking those gaps every once in a while is really missing the forest for the trees. Yeah, absolutely. And I think the other thing that people kind of don't give credit for is like Eric Carlson and P.K. Subban is the same way. his defensive impact is very good. You know, like Eric Carlson is going to beat guys for pucks down low.

He's going to win puck battles. He's deceptively strong. He can lay the body like, you know, very few players can just based on like his speed and positioning. Like, I'm sure you remember in the playoffs a couple years ago when he broke Nathan Bulli's sternum with a completely clean open ice hit. And like Nathan Bulli is a tough kid and he caught him with his head down. and just hit him perfectly, like twice in two shifts, and the second one broke his sternum, which is just crazy. And, you know, like, Carlson can do anything.

And, you know, the way that the Ottawa senators use him is probably maximizing his talent in the same way that the way that the capitals use Ovechkin. I don't think Ovechkin is necessarily bad defensively, but he cheats in order to create that offense. And the same goes for Eric Carlson. Although Carlson's defensive play, like, it still shows up. in the numbers. And like, I wish that they would use him a little bit on the penalty kill because his

penalty kill numbers are absurdly good. And I think that would quiet a lot of the detractors. But obviously, they're using him so much that they don't want to like add penalty killing to his already insane responsibilities. Yeah. It's a lot to ask from one guy. No, it was pretty comical last year when people were like, how can he be the norahs? He's not even killing penalties.

It's like, okay, but he's playing like, three. 30 other minutes during the course of the game. So I think we can evaluate him based on those minutes he's playing rather than the things he's not doing. And I mean, there's not very many things to kind of look forward to and get excited about with this Ottawa Senators team. But I think that Eric Carlson makes him sort of a must-watch team pretty much every time they're playing just because he's going to do at least five or six just ridiculous

things that very few other humans on this planet can pull off. And in terms of storylines to follow, like just seeing how much. points he can put up this year and whether you can approach 90 is really kind of one of the only things that interest me about the Ottawa Senators. Yeah, I haven't looked into the senators so far this season, but it kind of seems like the returns on Guy Bouchet aren't great so far, but I think over the long term, he's going to have a really nice impact on Eric Carlson's offensive numbers. And like you said, he might actually push 90 because any little boost could put him there. And I think one thing that I wanted to point out for guys like Carlson,

Suban, and Hedman in particular, and Burns as well, is that they're defensemen like Lindholm who enable offense, and that's like most defensemen, even the guys who put up points, at even strength they enable offense and they can get involved, but for the most part,

they're not driving offense. Guys like Carlson, Suban and Hedman drive offense. Like the offense on their teams runs through them. Like I think Victor Hedman, for example, has more to do with the Tampa Bay Lightning scoring than Stephen Stamcoast does. That's how big

he is in that team. Eric Carlson, there's no one even close on that team. And I really like Mark Stone and I really like Mike Hoffman. I like Kyle Turris too. But Eric Carlson is the way that the Ottawa Senators score. They all defer to him and everyone covers him and you still can't stop him.

It's just ridiculous at this point. Like the way he moves, how he finds shooting lanes and passing lanes. Like everyone knows it's going to Carlson and it does not matter at all. Yeah. No, it's funny. Whenever, you know, the center is struggling or losing, it's like, well, you know, it's Eric Carlson's fault. He's just not good enough.

And it's like, well, he's pretty clearly the best player on their team. So maybe the senators would be better if the other players around him were closer to his level. Maybe that's an interesting way to kind of look at it. So I'm glad we got through this. There's a bunch of guys who obviously we just didn't have time to talk about and didn't merit being in this top-thend discussion but are still really, really good hockey players. So people can direct their hatred and their issues with us

to at Andrew Berkshire on Twitter. And I'd highly recommend they check out your work on sports. It's at c.c.a because you do a great job kind of mixing sort of these micro stats and analytical numbers together with sort of just kind of watching the games and putting it all together. Thanks, man. I appreciate it a lot and I look forward to the angry Shay Weber people. I'm sure there will be plenty.

We'll make sure to get you back on as the season goes long. Okay, man? Absolutely. Sounds good, dude. Have a good one. You too. Before we put a bow on another edition of the HockeyPedocast, let's give some love to sponsor the show FreshBooks.

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