The Hockey PDOcast - Episode 207: Fighting Through Voter Fatigue

Episode Date: November 27, 2017

Andrew Berkshire joins the show to discuss the intricacies of the defense position, and help rank the best players at the position. Topics include: 2:44 The tricky nature of evaluating defensive play 5:56 The sweet spot for workload 10:55 Individually analyzing partners 13:00 The next wave of young blueliners 20:15 Ekman-Larsson's difficult circumstances 22:51 Hampus Lindholm's shutdown prowess 35:52 The risk vs. reward of Roman Josi's style 38:48 Alex Pietrangelo's Norris Trophy hype 45:53 Brent Burns' shaky start to the year 51:03 How much does Duncan Keith have left? 56:35 The undisputed Top 4 Sponsoring today’s show is SeatGeek, which is making it easier than ever before to buy and sell sports and concert tickets. They’re giving our listeners a $20 rebate off of their first purchase. All you have to do is download the free SeatGeek app and enter the promo code PDO to get started. Every episode of the podcast is available on iTunes, Soundcloud, Google Play, and Stitcher. 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 are also 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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Welcome to the Hockey P.D.O. cast. My name is Dimitra Filippovich. And joining me is my good ranking buddy, Andrew Berkshire. Andrew, what's going on, man? Not much. Just hanging out in the morning. Nice to be up early talking to you, Dimitri, as we did the last Monday. It's coming a weekly tradition. I think I've done five episodes of the Hockey Piedoccast this month, and you've been on three of them. So you're becoming a mainst. day. I'm trying to, you know, take over from Chris Johnson without the insider, you know, ability or the, the good gravelly voice. But those are his two best qualities. So, I know, I know.

It's just, I'm like really low rent Chris Johnson on the video cast. Uh, that's still a pretty good gig, man. Um, so last week we did the, uh, we discussed the center position and we, we ranked the top 10 and we discussed a bunch of other names as well. Um, today we're going to do defensemen who for my money represent the most fascinating position in the league i mean i guess you can make an argument for goalies but i know so little about them that i kind of always feel uneasy talking about them whereas with defensemen it's like in this perfect sweet spot of you know the combination of how important role they play in a team success how much the position itself has changed over the years as the game has and sort of how it still seems to generate the most

debate in terms of our expectations of what a top defenseman should look like and what they be capable of doing so you put all that stuff together and you've got a you got a pretty interesting podcast here I hope of us trying to figure out who the best guys in the league are yeah I feel like the difference between defensemen and goalies is that I like have more confidence in knowing more than the average person about how to rank defensemen whereas goalies it's like you can throw out like throw what we have and we're like we're coming up with better stats for goalies but I still don't feel like we're that far ahead of like general knowledge in terms of like watching a goalie and picking out who's good.

Right. So it's like a little bit different situation where there's more to draw on for defensemen. Yeah. And the thing with goalies is that, you know, there's like the few top guys that are very obviously very good. And then you have the guys who clearly aren't. And then you have most of the position is just like kind of in that in between.

And the debate you get into is sort of whether they're closer to the higher end to the bottom end. But it's still like such a gray area. Whereas with defensemen, I feel like we can't have them. more well-rounded conversation. But at the same time, like, I still feel like, I don't know, I guess what's the best way to put it? Like, our tools for measurement or sort of our understanding of the position is still not

ideally where it needs to be or where it will be in the next couple of years because there's still a lot of like when it comes to measuring defensive play, I feel like we still have a bit of ways to go. Yeah. I mean, until we can accurately have some sort of qualifier. or quantifier for like gap control and positioning, you know, we're always going to be a little bit behind the eight ball

with measuring defensive play. Because like, you know, we have some good stats for defense, for defensive play, but like there's so much more to it that, you know, players do without the puck that we can't really measure at the current time. Right.

So there's always a bit of mystery in there. And, you know, you could argue that having, taking a more analytical, approach to analyzing this position is more important than for any other just because I feel like our eyes tend to really deceive us quite a bit when it comes to a defenseman just because typically if they make a mistake it winds up in the back of their team's net

unless the goalie pulls them out so it's very easy to latch on to those couple of things and you see that time and time again with some of the top defense in the league who I know the more ice time you play and the more you're out there the more you're exposed to those types of things so when that adds up all of a sudden you can kind of quickly trick yourself into thinking that, you know, the defenseman is a, as a massive liability or can't be trusted, but then you actually have to dig a little bit deeper

and it typically tells a different tale. So I feel like that's really important here. But I mean, the other nuance as well is, you know, for defensemen, there's so much that goes into the quality of competition debate because, you know, you see, there's a bunch of guys that are near the top of all sorts of shot metrics and are very analytical

funny guys, but they're generally being, you know, sheltered with super cake minutes. And then we kind of have to weigh that against the guys who are always playing against the other teams best, like a Mark Edward Vlasic. And as a result, their numbers aren't going to be that great. So there isn't just like this sort of one cut or dried number that we can just point to as the be all end all. We sort of have to take all of that into account.

So, Dimitri, are you trying to tell me that Mark Barbario isn't better than Mark I'd barred Velastic. I mean, the numbers speak for themselves. I mean, look at his coursey. Make a lot of old school analysts mad. Yeah. Yeah, I remember the days where Eric Gelena while he was on the New Jersey Devils was ripping it up. Yeah, I remember watching him and thinking, like, how is this even happening that he has a good coursey?

Because the guy can't friggin't skate. Yeah. But I mean, there is a fine. fine line there because you could sort of, I mean, it's not to that big of a degree, but like you could sort of say a similar thing about Cody Franzen, but he's actually, he's actually been legit. Obviously, maybe now he's in the later stage of his career. But, um, so here's a sort of thought exercise, philosophical question for you.

Do you think we've figured out the ideal amount of ice time the defensemen should be eating up on a game, on a game to game basis? Because, you know, for the most part, it seems like we just randomly arbitrarily pick that 20 minute mark as, you know, a rough starting point. And then some of the top guys play a couple minutes more, but then some of the fourth third-parring defense, we may play a little bit less, but it seems to always kind of gravitate around what's ultimately a pretty arbitrary number that I feel like we picked just because it's nice and round. Yeah, I mean, I guess it probably depends on the player, right?

Like there are some guys who expend more energy during their shifts than others. Like, I would say, like, Eric Carlson isn't going to be. be the same as a Brent Burns. Brent Burns, like, I don't want him to play more than, like, 22 to 24 minutes. Right. And in, like, a big game, whereas, like, Eric Carlson, you can throw him out there for 35 and you're probably not getting, you know, much of a drawback in terms of performance.

Right. He just, like, God, he's so efficient. It's so frustrating if you're, you know, watching him just completely destroy teams, and then the Ottawa senators are so boring and, you know, undo. all of his good work. I guess like if they just had one other really good defensemen on that team, that'd be a bit of a different story, but he's kind of on an island there. Yeah, I feel like it's going to be a while until we, until Eric Carlson's name comes up in these rankings. Yes, it may be.

It's a spoiler. Yeah, the reason why I brought that up is because, you know, a guy that was on my honorable mentions list was Ryan Suter. And whenever I think of him, I think of this, discussion and it's you know when you watch him play it does especially in the past when he was playing like over 29 minutes a game which was absurd um it felt like you know he was leaving a bit on the table just because he sort of knew that he had to pace himself and i always wondered whether that was the most optimal way to use them you obviously have to you know figure out who's going to be taking up those minutes and whether they're actually a useful contributor themselves but it always felt like when you're watching suit or play like like

like if you really needed to turn it on, he could be a lot better, a lot more effective, but he just knew, especially early in the game, that he had so much of a workload ahead of him that he couldn't afford to exert himself like that. And so,

I don't know, I just think that's an interesting talking point because we still don't really have an answer to that, and obviously it's going to be on a case-by-case basis, but it's just that like sort of in-game attrition of workload versus productivity. Yeah, and, you know, not just in-game, too,

because he has to, you know, budget out energy for the whole season playing like that. I mean, I know he isn't playing those kinds of minutes, at least that extreme anymore. What I always found confusing about the situation in Minnesota when he was playing that many minutes is it's not like they had a blue line of, you know, punks that they needed him to play half the game. They were pretty severely underusing a guy like Jared Spurgeon for a long time. And like, you know, you could say maybe they were sheltering Spurgeon a little bit and they didn't trust him. But, you know, now that he started to play heavier minutes, you can see that he doesn't really need to be sheltered.

Like, he's a strong top pairing guy. So it always confused me a little bit that with those kinds of decisions, it makes more sense if you're in a situation where, you know, you've got some injuries on the blue line and you're playing a bunch of rookies or something. But if you got, you know, a couple good pairings, you can spread those minutes out, especially if you've got like different guys that are good on the same side, right? Like early in the year this year, I know Jeff Petrie had some struggles for the Canadians, partially because he was playing Carl Alsner, which he still is, which is, which is, you know, not optimal.

But Clos Julian was running out Shea Weber for like 29 minutes a game, which is a lot to ask with Shea Weber, not just because he's not Ryan Souter, he's not that smooth skating guy. But he's also, you know, getting older in years, got that big heavy body, a muscle to lug around. And he expends lots of energy on shifts with big, hits and big shots. And, you know, when you've got another guy on the right side like Jeff Petrie, you don't really need to do that. You can, you know, alternate your guys in the left side and run both of those guys in, you know,

that medium level minutes of like maybe 24, 25 minutes a game. And then you don't have to worry about it as much. And you're not wearing out your supposed best defenseman. Right. And the funny thing is, you know, we're sort of painting this picture of, you know, we're talking in the past tense. And I think Ryan, last time I checked Ryan Zererer was still leading the league. in 5-15 ice time per game.

Oh, is he? Wow. Good times. I mean, it's obviously dropped a bit over the past couple years, but he's still, yeah, he's still playing over 27 in all situations per night, and I believe he's like in the 19s and in 5-1-5, so they're still riding up pretty hard. But another sort of thing when discussing Ryan Souter, and that's something that I struggled with on this list, more so than with the forward positions, was, you know, separating

the play of individual guys from their partner. And it was kind of tough, like, if you could combine Ryan Suter and Jared Spurgeon, or, you know, we'll get into Seth Jones and Zach Wrenski, for example. But it's like, it's very tough to figure out necessarily whether it is just kind of a, you know, a beautiful partnership and a symbiotic relationship where they're helping each other out evenly or whether, you know, if you split them up how they do, because for some of these cases, we don't really have recent examples of what that would look like. so we just kind of have to play a bit of a guessing game or just dock both guys a little bit as a result. And that was a tricky part of this rankings. Yeah, it's always really tough to do that with defensemen, especially in situations where, you know, guys are pretty consistent with their partners or especially over like multiple years. I mean, I have the advantage with the sport logic data that I can look into like individual contributions and see like what they're actually doing on the ice. But even then, like there's a certain amount of impact that you're going to have.

have on what you're doing with and without the puck, right? Like, if you have a defense partner that's, like, extraordinarily good at stopping controlled entries against, you're going to have, you know, like more loose puck recoveries in the defensive zones off of dumpins because you're just, there's just going to be more of them. Right. You're not going to have as many individual battles at the, at the blue line, you know, like, there's little repercussions to every little play.

So it's interesting to look at that. Yeah, there's, yeah, there's obviously, you know, stylistic differences. if you're playing with a guy that profiles a certain way compared to another, your game itself might change. And so that's, it's tricky. So we're getting into the honorable mentions segment here. And, you know, Ryan, Suter and Jared Spurgeon, two names you already mentioned. So we didn't have to discuss them any further. There was kind of, I split this part into two separate crops.

And it was like the next wave of guys. And then there was sort of the old guard. And, you know, the next wave, I had guys like Colin Preco and Jacob's. Laban and that aforementioned Seth Jones and Zach Wrenzki. Do you think there's any other names that I'm missing there in terms of sort of that under 25 up-and-comer who's already pretty much a first pairing defense in, but you think that in the next year or two could really vault into that top-ton discussion? Well, I mean, you mentioned Zach Wrenski.

I think he's a future Norris winner. In Carolina, Brett Pesci, I think, is almost as underrated as Jacob Slavin. And, you know, again, like you said, it's kind of hard to separate them as a pairing. But those two guys are, like, over the last two years, like, right at the very top in terms of, like, high-end defensive play. They're almost, like, in terms of defensive pairing, the only comparable one that I can look at that was consistent over the last two years, well, actually, only the last one year was Suban and Ekholm in terms of, like, just shutting players down. So like that's a pretty high watermark for those guys to be had already. Yeah. I mean, I have mine set up a little bit differently.

I basically have like the top defensemen. There's a bit of a gap. And then there's like five totally interchangeable talents in my opinion where like depending on the year, one of them might be ahead of the other. But I have like an arbitrary ranking. And then I've got my like guys that make up the rest of the top 10. All right. Yeah, I think that's fair. Well, let's go through some of the rest of my honorable mentions,

and then we'll get into the top 10. Sounds good. So, yeah, you mentioned, actually, one final thought on Warrensky there. I completely agree about the Norris comment. I mean, obviously that doesn't really have much practical value to us because if he's, you know, if he's finishing, like, fourth or fifth in the noise voting, it doesn't really make that big of a difference. But what he's got going for himself is that I feel like he's,

he's one of those guys it seems like he's going to rack up the counting stats especially on the power play so uh voters seem to love that kind of stuff so that's working for him in his favor but yeah so in terms of the old guard um guys that i wanted to put in here but i just didn't have space for ultimately were crystal tang duncan keith uh Dustin bufflin um and then i guess you can classify them in the old guard although they're still you know i guess late 20s and in their prime um ryan mcdonna and Madnesscan. Yeah, I feel like those are fair. I didn't have McDona that high.

Honorable mention for me is Chris Russell. No, I'm just kidding. Oh, boy. It would be funny if I actually like went hard in there just to like see what would happen. See how angry the PDO cast listeners would be. Yeah, just make that your corner. Yeah. I had Roman Yosey pretty close.

I actually didn't have Roman Yosey rated very highly until like, I redid my project this year. And he's just like so ridiculous offensively. And yet he is, he's really weak defensively. But he's such a game changer on offense that I kind of have to put him up at the top. He's almost like Eric Carlson level on offense, which is, you know, crazy to think about. But he just doesn't have the all-round game that Carlson has. Yeah.

So it's all about ultimately what it's your net impact, right? or what you're bringing to the table versus what you're taking off. So as long as the good outweighs the bad, that's all that matters. Yeah, with McDonough, I mostly wanted to bring him up in this discussion just because it's kind of weird, you know, heading into the year. You would have thought that he'd be a natural fit to play with Kevin Shandkirk and that that pairing would take off, especially now that he was kind of unchanged from Dan Gerardi and the anchor that he is.

but I think they've only played like 40 minutes or so together at 5-1-5. And, you know, they started off the year together and then things just didn't go well right off the bat. And L&Video just quickly overreacted and went away from it. And he's been playing a lot with like Nick Holden and Brennan Smith. And he's been fine, but he hasn't necessarily been lighting the world on fire either. So I guess I've been a bit disappointed. Like, I think if he came out of the gate really hot here, I would have been very tempted to move him up this list. But he fell as a result.

and the other guy is Matt Niskin in there, and he's missed the chunk of the year so far, but if you look at sort of the trajectory of the cap season, there's a bit of correlation and causation, and we can have that discussion, but it seems like a very big coincidence that, you know, when Matt Niskinan went out of the lineup, they really fell out of the table,

and then he comes back in, and all of a sudden their performance as a team skyrockets again, and he's one of those perpetually underrated guys that doesn't necessarily rack up a ton of points or isn't very flashy, but just gets the job done in pretty every area of the game. Yeah, and Niskinin's a pretty underrated guy. And like you said, he's just an all-around beast. Like, he's not a guy who's going to, you know, put up 60 points or score a ton of powerplay

goals, even though like he can do that, especially on the Capitol's power play, which has, you know, been the envy of the league for so long, even though they were a little bit to take a step down last year. But he's just like he does everything really well. A lot like Jacob Slaven actually just like no real amazing standout skill necessarily, but just solid in every aspect. I actually just out of curiosity went and checked to Corsica to look at the McDonough-Shattonnes-Shattonkirk situation. Right. So they were outscored three to two, which is not that bad. In 40 minutes of gameplay together, or 41, but they had a 56.6% coursey together. Yes.

Which is, you know, the Rangers aren't very good at possession, so maybe they should try that again. Yeah, I believe it was like, it was early on, it was that Hockey Inn and Canada game against the Leafs, and Lanku's got pulled, and things were really going off the rails early, and they went down big, and they kind of just split them up and went away from it and never really revisited it. So I guess that's another notch in the cap for the people who want L.A. and Mignon to get fired from New York.

Yeah. But I just as a fan of hockey and just out of curiosity, I'd love to just see those two play together for an extended period of time and see the results because I feel like they might not necessarily be 50% good, but I wouldn't be surprised at all if they were hovering in that mid-50s range, and that would put them into discussion amongst the top pairings in the league. Yeah, I mean, it's one of those things. It just makes logical sense, right?

You've got like an offensive guy who has a bit of, defensive liability and then you've got like a stud defensive guy who can also chip in on offense and is a pretty good you know puck handler himself it makes sense that those two should be a little bit magic together if you give them a chance so this is a this is a good segue then into getting into my top 10 um i have a guy here is slightly higher at 10 than you did in your list and the reason why i said it's a good segue is because similarly I think when Nicholas Jalmersen came to the coyotes, we expected that there'd be a fit there between him and Ekman Larson. And I was fascinated to see how that dynamic would work.

And they themselves haven't, I don't know if it's 40 minutes or so, or maybe it might be more or slightly less. But for the most part, they haven't really played together this season. And Ekman Larson has instead played with Jason Demers mostly. And they've been perfectly fine, especially when you adjust for team factors and look at it from a relative perspective. And yeah, so I mean, I had Ekman Larsen here at 10, and he's a very tricky guy to evaluate, especially when you look at his results for the past couple years, because it's just been such a wasteland around him that it's kind of tough to tell whether it's ultimately, whether it's ultimately a good or a bad thing, because on the one hand, you can argue that he hasn't had any help and he'd be, you know, his numbers would look way better and better surroundings. But at the same time, it's also like he's just gotten to do everything. So he's inflated his counting stats as well. So it's kind of it's tough to evaluate from that perspective.

But I think that just when you watch him and when you look at everything as a whole, his talent is just so immense that it was tough to keep him off of this list. Yeah, he was an honorable mention for me because I actually rejigged my list a little bit off of what the pure numbers had. But Egman Larson, when I, broke it down. He plays the toughest minutes in the league by like a significant margin and not just for defensemen. He's just like, you know, we talked about Eric Carlson being on an island in Ottawa, but at least he's got some forwards that can really, you know, make some game-changing plays.

Arizona until Clayton Keller, you know, was a barren wasteland, and even now, you know, that's just one guy. So if it's just those two figuring it out, you know, it looks like, like I thought Arizona made some nice moves on defense in the last couple years. I thought they'd be a lot better than they are right now, but, you know, hockey's pretty random. I actually liked Bonk's Mullet had a tweet yesterday, maybe it was a day before, saying that the Vegas Golden Knights, he didn't know if they were, you know, a feel-good story or just another example that everything in the NHL was random and nobody knows what the hell they're doing,

which is like, you know, it kind of makes sense, right? Like when you look at what's going on. But yeah, he was, you know, in the 11, 12, 13 range for me, Ekman Larson. Give me your 10 and then give me your 9 as well. And we'll just discuss both guys. My 10 is a guy I had to move up big time from my list,

but I just believe in him a lot, and that's Hampus Lindholm. I just, for some reason, he just didn't come across well in the statistics this year. He rated 31, and that doesn't make sense to me. But, you know,

there's, sometimes there's, you got to trust your eye test a little bit. Andrew, you're a madman. 10? I know. I know.

I haven't been my top five. I know. He's down to 10 for me. But he wasn't even on your list on your list this year, was he? No, like I said, he ranked 31. Yeah. The fact that you had can't follow over him was,

I want to revoke your sportsnet, your sportsnet employee tag or whatever. Yeah, you're off the job. Or at least the analytics tag. Yeah, you're off the job. Yeah, but there were, like, there are certain things that went Fowler's way. Like, one of the first.

the things that I highly rated was like puck management, not making mistakes. And last year, Linholm was really bad for turnover. It's really bad for low pass success rate, whereas Fowler is really good at that. Fowler is actually like one of the best defensemen in the NHL for clean zone exits, which surprised me. And he had a really good year last year. You know, I know that it's easy to crap on Fowler because he's been pretty overrated for a really long time. but I think that there's a reason why the ducks trust him and why he finally had his like breakout year offensively last year. There's good things with Fowler that have been kind of hidden by some bad partners.

You know, I like Campos Linholm a lot, but he also hasn't had to carry Kevin BXA around for a couple years. That's true. But I like I like have his let home more than Camp Fowler. It's just that that's how it came out for the waiting of the statistics this year. And yeah, exactly. So, you know, there's my methodology. I also disagree with myself sometimes.

And my number nine was Jacob Slavin. Okay, well, let's stay on Fowler and then home for one second here. I'm not surprised to hear about the zone exit portion of the equation because, you know, especially watching in the playoffs last year, I thought Fowler was amazing. and when he came back from injury and in the Predator series he was just just doing everything and you could sort of see the kind of individual talent and ability with the puck that has made people talk him up so highly. I feel like I've been sort of in the middle on Fowler because, you know, you have sort of

this contingent that talks him up as the Ducks best defenseman because of that talent and sort of latches onto that. And then you have the more analytically minded people who kind of dismiss him and think that he's a very replaceable guy. And I think that he's somewhere in the middle. I mean, I personally wouldn't have given him that eight-year, $52 million contract this summer. I would have tried to sell high on him while I could and just kind of focused elsewhere, especially with all the blue line talent they have. But now that he's still on the team for the foreseeable future,

he's a good asset for them in terms of on-eye's ability with Lynn Holme. the thing ultimately with me is like the eye test checks out um he just looks remarkable but the other thing is like when you look at the numbers um when him and josh manson are out there the ducks just don't the ducks just don't give up anything and yeah that matches up perfectly with what you're seeing it's like i don't i don't know how they're really doing it but it just they're like always in the right position of the right time and they're just snuffing everything out and it just the game bogs down so much for the other team whenever they're out there and that It's like if you're going to, you know, if you're going to talk about defensemen as guys that need to really just be kind of shut down guys.

Like I feel like they're the preeminent shutdown pairing in the league just because they really just stopped the other team in its tracks. Yeah, they're incredible. And, you know, that pairing this year, I think I had them in my top pairings of the first quarter of the season for Sportsnet. They've just been ridiculous this year defensively. You know, both of them are, like, I like have his lymph home offensively to a certain extent. I don't think he's like a game breaker in any way, but he can like put up points and create some offense for his teammates just by, you know, getting the puck to the right places. Defensively, though, is where those two just are ridiculous together. Yeah. It's ridiculous.

Like, it's actually kind of absurd when you like look at their numbers compared to the rest of the team. And I know, I recognize that the ducks are kind of injured right now and, you know, the rest of their team is really bad. but those two together like the gap is gigantic yeah and actually you know what Josh Manson's a guy who and he got a nice low contract in season he's the guy I really just enjoy watching play even when Linholm was out of the lineup to start the year because he's you know based on his build and his offensive numbers throughout his entire career you would kind of just expect that he'd be just one of those kind of old school lumbering defensive defensemen but then when you watch him play like he's

weirdly got a green light to just do anything he wants to with a puck and he's like I think he's had a couple breakaways this season and he's just constantly just trying wild stuff in the offensive zone and I really enjoy that because it goes just sort of so counterintuitive to what we've been led to believe a guy who looks like him should play like so I love that I mean you know colton preco is like the extremely rich man's version of that but um I love those guys yeah it's always great to see the guys who kind of subvert expectations. It's like when a little guy like lays out a huge check, right? And you're like, oh, good for them. And then you realize that they're actually like super feisty. Yeah. Ryan, I was just dominating people physically. Yeah. He's a he's a great example because he's really strong. And like he doesn't play like a like a small defenseman is supposed to play or like you expect them to play. He's extremely physical and really strong defensively. And like he can produce offense. But I feel like he's focused so much on. defensive play in his career to just make the NHL in his size that he's become like this stalwart um so you had jacob slavin and nine um i know we already touched on him a little bit uh with the with him and pesci and uh the hurricanes

were really smart to get out ahead of it and just lock those guys both up long term and those are going to wind up looking like great contracts for them um yeah i mean they're i don't really know what else to add like he just seems like he's going to be one of those guys who we're going to be talking about as one of the most underrated players in the league for a long time because I'm not necessarily sure he's ever going to rack up those counting stats. So he's always going to be one of those things that, you know, the analytics are going to look great and he's going to do a bit of everything. But our belief on what he can do and sort of general perception probably won't line up,

at least for the foreseeable future. But that's perfectly fine. I'm sure the hurricanes aren't complaining. Yeah, it's weird because I feel like, I don't know if it's just that there's a lot more attention paid to the hurricanes analytically than other teams or what, but it seems like even broadcasters have started to pick up on Jacob Slavin being a big difference maker. I've noticed it a couple times on Sportsnet where people will just go on,

like, not a rant, but like this glowing two-minute talk about how Jacob Slavin is this huge underrated defenseman. So like there's some steam being picked up even though he doesn't have the huge county numbers and plus you know like I've got to throw in some hurricanes at some point into the into the high rankings because if I don't eric tulski you'll uh jump into my DMs and be like hey what about this guy yeah I love uh Eric tollsky that's a nice shout out yeah he he's he gets feisty in the DMs he does he loves uh making sure that we recognize his his best guys which makes sense because you know he's obviously put in a lot of work there and like you look at

uh how great that slave and peshi pairing is and how great that blue line is in Carolina. And finally, it looks like they're making some progress in the standings to go along with their excellent play on the ice. So I hope he's real proud right now. The thing with he should be, but the thing with Tulski and, you know, some of the other guys who have the good fortune of knowing who work in NHO front offices now is sort of the way they frame those criticisms with direct to our attention.

They're like, oh, have you considered looking at this stuff? Like, it's never, oh, you're wrong, you're an idiot. It's never, they never, like, approach it as an angry commenter would. They sort of approach it in a much more well-reasoned way where they're kind of guiding us. So I appreciate that. Yeah, when I was ranking the defenseman, because, like, obviously I do like year by year separately. When I looked at last year, like, Slavin and Pesci were, like, even higher than I, like, anticipated. And, like, the only reason that Pesci didn't make the top 20 is because, you know, it was a three-year thing.

and those two really took a step in the last two years, like progressive steps. Right. So I was direct messaging Eric, and I was like, Eric, like, is Arpeche and Slavin actually this good? Or my number is just kind of like off. Am I waiting the wrong thing? And he was like, yes, they are that good. Make sure you mention that they're good. Yeah.

And I think you noted this in Slavon's right up in your piece, but it really stands out when you watch and play as just how insanely aggressive and effective he is attacking opposing guys with the puck. Like he just he gets after it and he really makes life a living hell for them. And I think that's obviously kind of a big reason of why he's so effective defensively. So obviously, you know, there's different ways to approach playing the position. But I personally favor the guys who instead of kind of sagging back and waiting until the last second to kind of crowd around their net and try to block the shot, I appreciate it when they just go after it right at the blue line and try to kind of stop the guy from coming in with with a full head of steam and with

possession of the puck because all of a sudden their life is going to become a much more difficult. Yeah. And, you know, when you're that kind of aggressive player, sometimes Slaven doesn't really have this, but some guys who play that way will end up getting a walk a little bit more often because, you know, when you put yourself out there and take more risks to get greater rewards, sometimes a great player will find a way to beat you and make you look silly. so it's important to recognize that even if a guy gets walked once in a while

the ultimate end goal is still stronger because a guy like Jacob Slavin not only is he going to reduce the amount of time that teams are on the attack it also gives more time for his team to set up and make counterattacks right so it's a it's a double-edged sword there being aggressive especially when you have the skill to actually separate players from the puck the way that Jacob Slavin does like he ranked I think within the top five defensemen in the last two years for defensive play when I was breaking it down, which is, you know, for his age group, really incredible. Yeah, for sure.

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Okay, so I think I have to give my ninth guy here, and I guess you already sort of, spoiled that he's in your honorable mentions, but that's Roman Yosey for me. Oh, Roman Yosey in the top 10. Yeah, I just, I don't know. Can I love the offense? Can I combine Yosey and Echholm

into one person here and just have them as the ninth best guy? No, because that would be like the first best guy. Yeah, that's true. That's true. You're right. Yeah, I don't know. It's this sort of seven to, I guess, like 12 or 13 range for me was ultimately kind of just one big tier.

And it might not seem like that based on the way we've laid out these rankings. But if you wanted to say Yossi was the 12th or 13th best guy, I'd have no issue with that either. I don't have a super strong conviction here with it. But I've liked this game this year with Ekholm. And I think that's a pairing that makes a lot of sense. I'm kind of curious to see what they do when Ryan Ellis ultimately comes back from injury, whether they go back to what they did last year, which was also very successful for them. with Suban and Eckholm being the shutdown pairing

and Yossi and Ellis being, I guess, the de facto second pairing for them. Or if they stick with this and maybe try Ellis and Suban together or what they're going to do if they're going to split those three, all of those guys up into three separate pairings. But this is going to be a fascinating thing to follow. But for now, the Yosey at home pairing has just been very dominant for the predators.

Yeah, I've been really impressed with Roman Yose to start this season. I think he's had one of the best starts of his career. And, you know, part of that's probably due to having a defensive insulator of Echholm's quality. But, man, and has he ever been sharp? And just watching him, he hasn't been giving up as many of those, like, brutal defensive gaps that he did last year. I think he had a really rough Stanley Cup final last year trying to shut down Sidney Crosby. It didn't work out very well. And, you know, Lavillat never really was able to adjust anything defensively.

He really liked the Sub-Ban-Malkin matchup, and it worked out really well for him until I think the last, I think game five maybe, Malcolm had a really good game. But for the most part, that was shut down really well, and he just couldn't figure out how to, you know,

rejig things so that Crosby was not given free reign and Yossey had some struggles. But this year, it looks like he's playing a little bit tighter while still generating that crazy amount of offense. So I've been really impressed with him. Yeah, I agree. I'm not going to also,

I'm not going to dock him too much. much for struggling to defend Cindy Crosby. Yeah, I guess that's not really a fair comparison, eh? Like, I guess everybody will struggle at some point for a guy. It's like dinging a guy for not being able to catch McDavid. Yeah. Okay, so the next guy here on my list is Alex Petrangelo. And that's what I have as well.

So, very interesting. Listen, I can already foresee the future here and it's already starting to happen. And this is going to become a big subpoly. of the season, but Petrangelo seems to have been labeled as the next, he's due, it's his season guy for the Norris. And there's going to be that Drew Dowdy level backlash where people are going to start talking about how Petrangelo actually isn't even that good to sort of, you know, counterbalance that and defend Eric Carlson.

And as was the case with Dowdy a couple years ago, my opinion is going to remember. mean, steadfast in the fact that while Petrangelo was definitely not the best defenseman in the league and he should not be winning the Norris, he's really damn good. So we should also appreciate that as well. Yeah, yeah. And that's kind of the struggle that happens in like public discussions with these kind of things, right, where like a player is overrated and because of that, automatically people think overrated equals bad. And that's just not the case. Alex Peter Petrangeloich. is amazing. He's incredibly good defensively.

I would say the weakest area of his game is you know, puck movement, but he's still quite good at that. I'm just yeah, I'm with you on it that I don't think he's in that Norris contending area. And you know, I guess it depends for different people

like what they consider like the threshold for where Norris guys are. But for me, it's in that. It's in that that top six guys that are kind of vying for it every year and below that it's like there's really good players but they never really get to that level for me to be in the norris conversation yeah i mean my formula for the norris is eric carlson and the lo for a foreseeable future yeah and you know that's apparently not what the writers know it's it's and you know it's it's a

kind of, I guess, a boring story at this point, right? Like, no end. There's no real sort of nuance to it. Well, now that he's lost two in a row, which, like, I would say, like, I think you can make really good arguments both years that Carlson lost the Norrist trophy. And I know people were really crapping on Doughty the year that he won it, less so on Burns last year. But I think it was actually Doughty that was more deserving.

Yeah. But, you know, I think you can make really good arguments both years that the players who won it were the best defenseman but to for carlson to lose it both years i think is just so absurd in retrospect that like we're going to look back on it and like if he doesn't win this year as well we're going to look back on this era and i feel i feel like the last two years are the two best years that eric carlson has given us yeah and if he does and he's looking the same this year even with that uh injury that kept him out at the beginning if we look back on it and he never wins an orris in these three years like that's a huge shame on the hockey writing and uh voting community because it

like that's a huge oversight yeah i know he's already won two and people think that like you know he's got his doer or whatever but man oh man you got to recognize talent of that level well and this isn't a problem that's unique the hockey either like it's happening in the NBA right now where like lebron james hasn't won the MVP in a few years because you know there was sort of that voter fatigue and everyone's just kind of trying to crown the new guy and and write this story about how, you know, the league is going different places, but it's like, no, he's still been in the best player in the league for the past, however, many years. And it's likewise here with Carlson in terms of his peers at the defense position.

And I think, yeah, maybe an interesting story would be sort of just talking about how we're fortunate enough to witness this all-time career right now. Because, you know, he's just a remarkable. player and that is all that would also be a fascinating story too but it seems like a sports writers these days don't want to go that way and i guess maybe we should start the carlson for uh for masterton trophy uh buzz here for uh overcoming uh voter fatigue maybe uh maybe maybe that's a campaign people can get behind yeah i feel like that makes sense and also you know the masterton for dealing with playing for the auto senators uh that was your comment and not mine I do not endorse that type of that type of style.

I'll own it entirely. Yeah, so Petrangelo and Petrangelo's also been one of those guys the past handful of years where, you know, it seems like Colman Preco, who we mentioned earlier in this podcast, has gotten far more love from the analytics community. But it's been Petrangelo and whoever's been playing with. And mostly Jay Beaumister, who really has been washed up for a few years now, that have been doing a lot of the heavy lifting for that. team so that's kind of been a part of why his numbers might not look as impressive as they are and this year it's a perfect storm where the blues are this great story and you know they're atop the western conference and petrangelo's shooting and scoring more and you know carlinson was out to start the year a bit a bit i guess and then all of a sudden it's all coming together and you can kind of

see the makings of what's going to happen in the in the weeks and months to come yeah do you think there's some pushback against like you know the person like uh analytic press and for Petrangelo just because he's so recognized, like, from official sources. Like, even when Petrangelo wasn't, you know, I would say even like a top 10 defenseman, you know, he's just considered a lock for every team Canada. You know, he's always in like the name to defensemen as like the best defensemen in the league among, you know, broadcasters. Do you think that's part of it is that people see that he's always in that group and therefore feel no need?

talk about him as if he's as good as he is? Yeah, I think there's some of that. Yeah, it's kind of, that's a good point you mentioned. I didn't really think about that, but he always, he's just been like rock solid. He's been like a made man in the mafia here where it's just like, you don't even question it that he should just be in that tier and he's always been a team Canada guy. And I don't know, I guess it's deserved. Like he's not the flashiest player either, but he's very rock solid.

and I mean, he's in our top 10 here, so both you and I are pretty clearly fans of his game as well. Yeah, and I feel like, you know, some of the accomplishments that Petrangelo has that we don't really talk about is like he's pretty much the only reason that Jay Beaumester made Team Canada a couple years ago.

I know Doug Armstrong was on the selection committee or whatever you want to call it, but, and he, you know, Boeaster has been a team Canada guy for a long time, but Patrangelo has hidden bone misters inadequacies for a fair amount of time now. Yeah, no, he's been cooked and it's been all petrangelo. So I guess we're in top seven here? Yeah, okay, so who do you have at seven?

I have just outside my vaunted top six is Brent Burns. I know he had a great year last year, but I find that there are certain things about Brent Burns that give me a bit of pause that keep him slightly below that threshold. One of them is he's surprisingly sheltered for, you know, a top defenseman. Out of my top 23 or whatever I did for a sports net, he was the second most sheltered guy after Torrey Krug, which, you know, says a lot.

He doesn't play the heavy defensive minutes. That's Velasic. And he doesn't actually play that many minutes, which is kind of surprising. They spread out their top four pretty significantly. So that plus the over-reliance on his shot, which for a defenseman is probably not the best tool to create offense. Right.

Kind of drop him down a little bit. I still had him as the best offense creating a defenseman in the league last three years, which people would argue Eric Carlson, but he was just like a gold machine for his team, which I rated highly. But not particularly great in transition and a bit messy with the puck on his stick. So Burns dropped down to seven for me despite his otherworldly offense. Yeah.

Yeah, he's definitely. He's definitely air prone, although I guess you can make the argument that anyone that has the puck on a stick as often as he does will tend to make mistakes with it on occasion. He's kind of had a weird year here where, you know, it would have been reasonable to expect that he wouldn't necessarily do what he did last year or even the year prior, but there would be like a middle ground there and he's really taking a bit of a hit. Although I still believe, yeah. He finally scored, though. He finally scored. He finally got his first primary point of the year, I believe, which was a couple games ago now.

He's on a three-game point streak now after barely putting anything up for a really long time. Yeah. And, you know, he still has, he still on pace for, like, 40 points or so. And I wouldn't be surprised at all to see him go on a tarrier here and get back in a 60-ish-point range. And, you know, he won't score near 30 goals again. But in the high teens, I guess, seems reasonable for him. But he also, we should mention that.

you know, he looked really good with Paul Martin the past couple years and Paul Martin having only played two games this year and instead, I think his main partner has been Joe Kim Ryan, who I just found out about it recently. So it's, you know, it's been a bit of an adjustment for him and the year as a whole has been weird for, for the San Jose sharks. So I like Burns here at seven. And, you know, in the summer I was talking up the fact that the sharks should strongly consider trading him and selling high on him while they could after he had won the Norris. And obviously, that was never going to happen. That would have been such a bold move. But it's looking more and more like that would have been the prudent way to go for Doug Wilson and his staff.

Yeah, especially at that age. And if I remember correctly, his contract is pretty absurd. And I think it just kicked in this year, too. It's like, oh, yeah. It's like eight years or so, I believe. So that takes him until he's 40 years old, which is, yeah, that's pretty risky, you know, and over $8 million, I believe, isn't it? Yeah, it is. Yeah, just $8 million.

So, yeah, that's a rough one. I mean, he's probably not going to shoot 1% the rest of the year, so we'll see a little bit closer to what we remember of Brent Burns. But, yeah, there was definitely some regression on the way. It seemed like, you know, the last two years he was just shooting the lights out. And maybe this year he'll just have a two years worth of regression in the first half of the season. He only have the one goal you never know. So hopefully for his sake, though, he gets back to normal because Brenburn is a pretty fun player to watch. Yeah, yeah, definitely.

All right, so we're at the six spot here. And I have a guy who I think you're going to have slightly higher, but that's Mark Sheridano for me. and you know he's uh he's just a fantastic player and yeah i wouldn't be outraged if i had moved him higher on this list or someone else did like like yourself but i just i kind of had that top five and he was just outside of it just behind hamper's lynn home and you know he's also one of those guys where i'm a big fan of the partner he plays with as well so i i feel like maybe just subconsciously i docked him a little bit for it just because it was tough to give him all of the credit for it but i mean what him and dougie hamilton have been doing since they really got united full-time

at some point last season has been remarkable and like the flames are like the best team in the league when the two of them were on the ice basically so uh yeah he deserves uh he deserves his share of love here yeah i really like mark girodano i have him one spot higher but like i said before when i get into the top six there's like five guys that i see that like they're different players and different styles, but in overall impact, I find them mostly interchangeable. But at number six, I had Duncan Keith, who didn't make your list. I still have him pretty high. I just, you know, like we said, it's tough to separate partners.

And, you know, I've looked at Jalmersen a bit this year and how big of it, like a drop-off he's seen. And you look at Brent Seabrook, who has been Keith's, you know, longtime partner. I think Duncan Keith has a bigger impact on. on the game than we really give him credit for. And I know he's won two Norris's, but even still right now into his 30s, he's just a huge impact player who kind of runs that Blackhawks defense. Yeah, I think that's certainly feasible.

I had him sort of as that old guard in my honorable mentions, but I think he's definitely slowed down a little bit. And listen, his peak was so up there that even a drop off like that still makes him of a very, very good player, but you're right. You do have to account for the fact of who he's playing with. And the fact that his primary partner this year has been Brent Seabrook, who is just, I mean, I don't know. He's bad. He's an abomination right now.

And like, they don't even use him on the power play that much anymore, I think. Which is the only thing he's really good at it. Yeah, it's so weird. And like, you know, when the, when the, when the Predators skated laps around him last year, like Brent Seabrook was one of the main culprits. and Joe Quimel was riding him so much, and I think Quenval's a heck of a coach. But his love for and sort of loyalty to Seabrook and what he was in the past has been a bit of his undoing here, where he just can't really play anymore in today's NHL, and he was getting exposed.

And obviously, you know, if a guy like Keith has to play with him for the majority of his ice time, that's going to submarine his numbers a little bit. So I agree. I think Duncan Keith is a bit higher than I would, than I feel comfortable with for my taste. but he's still a heck of a player even if he isn't what he used to be anymore. Yeah, I mean, if you, like, just looking at the comparables that I had for Seabrook on my rankings list, it was like Ian Cole and who else was down there. I think even that might be generous, honestly.

Yeah, Alex Petrovich. And I think that's, you know, that's with Seabrook getting boosted a little bit by playing with Keith. So that's not exactly the great first pairing defensemen in the NHL. Yeah. Well, you know, based on everything we know about sort of how the Blackhawks operate and Stan Bowman's wizardry, I have no doubt in my mind that there will be some poor sap that winds up taking on Brent Zeevro's contract at some time in the future. And somehow that the Blackhawks are probably going to get like an asset back in return or something.

And we're all just going to be like, how the hell did this happen again? Yeah, I feel like last year I probably would have thought that. And then I look at the Jolmerson trade and I was like, Maybe not, though. Yeah, that's true. Is it Connor Murphy didn't make your list? No, he did not. Well, the good thing is,

Brent Seabrooks in a year or two of his eight-year contracts. Oh, God. Oh, I forgot about that. Yeah, it's pretty rough. Yeah, so Duncan Keith, we talked about him. You had him at, what, six or seven? Did you say, yeah, six, right? Yeah, six, and I had Giordano at five.

Man, Giordano is just like such a, like, He's got the offense. If you need him to do that, he's got that wicked shot. He can find holes on the power play. But just his defensive play and ability to move the puck up the ice is next level. And one of the things I looked at was, you know, what kind of defensive stats his partners had without him. And the impact that he has on Dougie Hamilton year over year is absurd.

Like Dougie Hamilton was really, really poor defensively, not last year but the year before where he wasn't playing with Giordano. then last year all of a sudden he's like super good at taking the puck away from opposing forwards and you know really good on loose puck recoveries and it's like what the heck happened here and the difference is he just plays with and learns from mark gerrano and it's changed his game made him a more complete player and you know gerardano's done that for brodie as well so yeah i think there's an element of uh we'll call it leadership for mark girodano that i really like yeah but like the actual tangible useful kind that we can point to um um um

Yeah, I was going to say there's no better sort of point in the favor of Mark Giordano and what he's capable of than what's happened to T.J. Brody the past year and a half because he's really, he's really falling off the map. Yeah. There's like, you know, I know TSN recently released there, what would an Olympic team look like if the NHL was going? And they had Morgan Riley on left defense over Mark Giordano. And I'm like, how does this guy not get respect, especially because I think it was Craig Bucer. who made the list. And, you know, he's a Calgary guy to not bring Mark Giordano there. Like, I know that part of the reasons why he hasn't made like Olympic teams before is

because he was injured at the wrong times and, you know, he just kind of got overlooked. But if he never ends up playing for a World Cup or Olympic team for Team Canada, that just it boggles the mind because he is very clearly, in my opinion, the best left-hand D that Canada has had for the last like five, six years. Yeah. Yeah, it was a heck of a player. So I had Giordano 6th, and I had Hampas Linholm, as we mentioned, 5th, and we already chatted quite a bit about him, so we don't have to continue that.

And we get into this top four here, and I really see no argument for not having, you know, you can quibble in the order, I guess, but like these top four guys are. Yeah, you're going to have the same guys? It's, yes, I hope so. Otherwise, you're on a crazy place. I just threw in some random in there, you know, Damon Severson. Yeah, yeah. Yeah, well, John Moore, if we're only talking about three-on-three exploits.

Oh, man, he's good three-on-three. He's here, three-on-three, yeah. So this is my order. I had Dowdy, Suban, Headman, Carlson in that order. And I believe you had Dowdy second and headman-fourth, or was it? It was Headman, Dowdy, Sub-Ban-Carlson. Yeah. Yeah.

So, I mean, that 2 to 4 range could really go in any way, and then Carlson should be first. And I don't know, like, what is there to say about all these guys? They're all really good. I think the most interesting thing actually here is, and I brought this up to someone a couple days ago, I forget who, but it's sort of, I don't know if it's always been this case or if it's happened recently and people just aren't really realizing it. But P.K. Suban, I view as much more of a sort of prototypical defensive defensive defensive. than this sort of... It's weird, eh? Guy with a puck who has a flare for the dramatic

and this offensive dynamo, which I guess he kind of was more so early in his career, but lately he's... And he's also bucked the trend of being a guy who dumps the puck out a lot, and I generally really don't like that at all, but he actually seems to be a pretty effective doing so and I guess other parts of his game make up

for any drawbacks that would result from it. So I just think, yeah, he's a defensive defenseman. People don't think of him that way, but his game profiles like that and his numbers look like that. And it's just the nature of the beats. The fact it's just what's happening. Yeah. And that's, you know, I was surprised as well when I looked into the numbers and he ended up being stronger on defense than offense. You know, it's something that I've said that he's as strong for the last couple years.

But now I know part of it last year was he wasn't able to create the amount of offenses he usually is because of the back injury. Like playing a whole year where the herniated dissoning. skin your back. I'm guessing it's not very comfortable. Right. But, you know, he did it. He played really well in the playoffs and everything. But, you know, even now, like, looking at him this year, he's got 18 points in 23 games, but I think he's far more noticeable for his defensive play than what he's creating, which is, you know, a new thing for P.K. Suban, like, he still has that dynamic play. The game that he had against the Canadians, he basically, like, single-handedly created a goal and

embarrassed Max Patcheretti walking him. But, you know, mostly he's, keeping things simple and, you know, playing a very defensive style. And like he said, yeah, I don't love the dumpouts that he does. But in terms of guys who do dump the puck out, he's actually like the most successful defenseman at it. Like he always finds ways to clear the zone. So at least there's that. And it seems like his teammates are pretty good at anticipating where he's going. And he kind of uses those dumpouts as almost like stretch passes sometimes.

So, you know, if you can take advantage of it well, it can work, even if it's not the most ideal thing for a player of P.K. Suban's caliber. But I also wonder, you know, last year is a little bit different with Ekholm. You want to see Suban making more plays. But this year with Alexei Emelin, where, you know, all the pressure is on Suban to make those zone exits, it does make sense to conserve your energy a little bit and not make the fancy play because you can't really, you know, bank on your part. or bailing you out if you make a mistake. Right. And I guess, yeah, the kind of disappointing part or underwhelming part would be that most guys that do rely on that dump out typically do so out of necessity and they don't necessarily have the skill to do anything better, whereas with Sue Ben, it's pretty clear he could be doing more with it and he might be leaving some stuff on the table. But, you know, you're right.

I mean, we talked about this. And when we were talking about the Stanley Cup final last year and I believe you and I actually did a preview of it together and it was that, you know, it does seem at least that there's a bit of thought to it. sort of kind of directs these dump outs in a way and at least gives his teammates and in his forwards it kind of a fighting chance to retrieve the puck and they have some personnel that can maybe do so better than other teams so he has that going for him in his favor but yeah otherwise i mean he's just he's just rock solid as a defenseman and the other three guys i mean doughty does everything

well and he's so smooth and doubt he just doesn't make mistakes hey like that's like the biggest factor in his game I find is like you look at it and I found it interesting that him and copatar for the last two straight years have had the highest past success rate in the NHL and you know like dowdy has the lowest turnover rate relative to team in the NHL every year so like you know part of it is he was making pretty safe plays under under Sutter but you know at a certain point you have to give a guy credit for never making mistakes yeah I agree with that and yeah it's it's a bit of a shame that we had to and I have that whole Doughty versus Carlson thing because I feel like it definitely

undersold what Doughty is capable of and what type of player he is. And, you know, the thing that I give Doughty a lot of credit for is, you know, he's played a lot with Muzin this year again and, well, actually, he doesn't play that much. They only played 80 minutes or so together, but they're paired currently. But it's the past few years where regardless of who you play with Doughty, it's going to be an effective pairing. and there's something to be said for that where it's such a luxury for his team because if you know they can they can do so many different things or they can sort of allocate their resources

and to help their depth a little bit and they don't necessarily just need to load up a top pairing with him and muzzan they can play derrick foreboard or brayden mcnab in the past or whoever like they could put oscar fattonberg with him and i'm sure he'd be fine and so it's one of those things where it's that that must be such a luxury for his team and his coach that you just know that Dowdy plus whoever is going to be a really, really good pairing and you don't have to even worry about it. Yeah, I think that's, you know, the great benefit of these high-end guys is, you know, Giordano hasn't had to, with Hamilton and Brody, both really good players. But, you know, Duncan Keith carrying Brent Seabrook, Victor Headman carrying, whoever when Anton Strom is not there,

Drew Dowdy carrying lots of people, you know, P.K. Suban has carried Hal Gill, Josh George's, Alexi Emelon throughout his career, Eric Carbner. Carlson has carried, you know, like 15 different corpses. You know, those types of guys, you're never hearing the teams going out and saying, like, oh, we need to find a partner for this guy, a partner who can work with this guy. It's just not a problem for those teams. It's this huge luxury. Like you said, you can just throw anyone there and you have a top pairing that can hold off the opposing team's best lines.

And the guys who are, you know, a couple tiers below that is when you constantly hear, you know, like the Morgan Riley's of the world, we're like, they need somebody to help insulate them. And, you know, that's how I think you can tell the, like, elite of the elite versus, like, the really good defensemen. Yeah. And I'm looking at headman's partners this year. And, you know, he's played 66 minutes with Antron Straubman,

and the two of them have predictably been remarkable together. But beyond that, I mean, his top partners have been Jake Dodgen and Andre Schuster and Dan Girardi and, oh, boy. That's a murderer's row of guys who should not be playing on a top pairing. So it's – but yeah, that's the luxury when you have a guy like Victor Hedman, is that he's just so damn good that he's going to be able to carry those guys. And although I should – him and Jan Girardi in 40 minutes have a – have a 37.8 percent shot share, which – Well, listen, Hedman's still human, all right?

There's only so much you can do. I mean, even Eric Carlson, if you throw Dan Gerardy on him, I'm sure he wouldn't be. you know, crushing it. He kind of struggled a little bit with Mark Methought last year who really fell off a cliff. And I remember, you know, halfway through the season, I wrote a piece on Eric Collison being like, look, his numbers are just not what they usually are. And something's going wrong here. And like I at that point had not thought to look into his partners, which was oversight on my part.

But then by the end of the year, when I was looking at like who should win the Norris, I looked into how Carlson was playing with Methad v. Claussen. and it was like this huge like 15, 16 point gap in like goals for percentage and Corsi. It was like, okay, methought's the problem. And he was also like I looked into it and like no one in the entire league for defensemen who would play like a reasonable number of minutes touch the puck less often than methot. Like he was touching it less than Boroughke. Yeah. Which is that's bad for people who don't know.

Yeah, that's true. Probably good. That was probably good resource management though. I want the puck on Carlson stick every single opportunity possible. This is true. Yeah, I love Dan Giority, man. Listen, these are such unpredictable times in 2017. So many crazy things are happening in this world.

It's reassuring when you sort of just know what you're going to get from someone or something. I thought you're going in another route and I was going to say, Dmitry Trinovich calls Dan Girardi for the Norris. No, no, but I will say that I like tune in on Saturday night. Lightning are playing the Penguins. First shift to the game, 30 seconds in. Dan Jarady's just like laying on all fours in front of his net blocking Peter Boudai from actually playing his position.

He's like trying to stop the puck with his face. And I was like, oh my God. I mean, that's slightly better than his usual pass from behind the net into the slot right onto an opposing player's stick, which is like, you know, the best thing that the Dan Jarady does. And I don't know how he does it so consistently,

but it's like every couple games. Well, I mean, the Tampa Bay Lightning in-house analytics show that it's, It's a repeatable skill. Yeah, I always wonder when teams talk about that, whether or not they're just like saying that just to shut people up. Because I feel like a lot of times there's not actually anything there. Yeah, especially in this case, I feel very, very confident. And the lightning are a smart organization, but I'm calling BS on that one.

I agree. All right. And Carlson, number one. Yep. You know, we've been talking for like 70 minutes here and we're going to talk for less than 70 seconds about the number one guy on our ranking list. but there's nothing left to say about him. Yeah, and we've talked to him, talked about him throughout this podcast, but he's just the best at everything.

And there's no argument that he's not the best defense from the league. And let's just call it a day there. So Andrew, plug some stuff. Where can people find you? What are you working on these days and all that good stuff? You can always check me out on Sportsnet. I write three articles a week there. Only two this week, said I did four last week.

RDS as well. I write once there a week. sporting news once a week and I'm this week actually starting out my podcast again so oh looking forward to it yeah we'll be breaking down some movies and stuff and maybe some hockey as well sweet and you and I will uh will chat sometime I guess we'll go for next week we still have to do our ranking our left wingers and right wingers yeah I look forward to should we should we separate left wingers and right wingers or should we make like a consensus top like 15 of wingers what do you think I think yeah I don't know I mean you obviously wrote about them separately but I think we could

just combine them especially since some guys do kind of gravitate from one position to the other and also I guess it's not like it's not really a distinct position like it'd be weird if we ranked defensemen and centers and as a top 20 but for the wingers it's like they're kind of interchangeable so I'm cool we're just doing one big ranking for those yeah it's totally up to you I mean, I think both ways work. I mean, there's different, like, what I found this year was, like, there's very different, like, spreads for left and right wingers. Like, it was weird, like, how much different, like, one side was much stronger

defensively than the other side, one side much stronger offensively. So, like, maybe there's something there that, like, just hockey systems tend to favor a specific role for a specific winger, but it would be interesting to get into. If we do two separate podcasts for right and left-winger, are we going to have to talk about Alex Ovechkin on both? Yeah. Yeah. He's number one on both.

Fair. All right. So people have that to look forward to, and we'll do that next week. And in the meantime, we'll figure out how exactly we want to do it. Sounds good, man. All right, chat soon. The Hockey PDOCast with Dmitri Filipovich.

Follow on Twitter at Dim Philipovich and on SoundCloud at soundcloud. At soundcloud.com slash hockey p.docast. Thank you.