The Hockey PDOcast - Episode 259: Johan Pettersson, Number One Defenseman

Episode Date: November 3, 2018

Andrew Berkshire joins the show to help rank the best defensemen in the game. In this episode we discuss the nuances that make it tricky to evaluate the position (1:00), the honourable mentions that just missed the cut (21:45), and the top 20 itself (33:30). We also get into topics like Zach Werenski without Seth Jones, Dougie Hamilton's perplexing usage, why people seem to hate Jeff Petry (49:15), how Oliver Ekman-Larsson finally has shiny toys to play with (1:11:45), why hockey people seem to love Alex Pietrangelo (1:04:15), and how Marc-Edouard Vlasic has freed up Brent Burns to do his thing (1:18:45).  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. Also sponsoring today’s show is For Hims, which will serve as a one-stop shop for all of your hair loss, skincare, and other wellness supplement needs. They’ll connect you with real doctors and medical grade solutions, while sparing you the embarrassment of in-doctor visits and saving you the time you would’ve otherwise spent sitting in a waiting room. Just go to forhims.com/pdo and answer a few quick questions, a doctor will review your file and prescribe what you need, and the products will be shipped directly to your door. As my listener, if you let them know we’ve sent you you’ll even get a trial month for just $5 right now while supplies last. See the website for full details. One final note: a reminder that we’re hosting a daily fantasy listener league contest over at FanDuel every Thursday this season. While you wait for the next opportunity to play to come around, go over to fanduel.com/PDO and tell them we’ve sent you. They’ll hook you up with a bonus $5 to play with after your first deposit, which will surely come in handy throughout the year. See you there! 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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My name is Dimitri Philopovich. After a brief, brief one-week hiatus from our ranking set, I've got Andrew Berkshire back on the line to continue with ranking to the fencemen. So, Andrew, what's going on, man? Not much, just to finally feeling healthy, man. I think you and I have been through the ringer the last month or so, respectively. And it's been a good start to fall, eh? Yeah, I'm afraid of winter. I am afraid of winter, too.

and I imagine yours over in Montreal is a bit colder than mine here in Vancouver, but it's like a great running annual tradition of I always get sick like the first week of the season. It's like right in that, I guess like the first or second week of October usually, and it's kind of transitioning and getting a bit colder, getting a bit wetter, and all of a sudden, like the first day of the year, I feel like I'm always like struggling through a headache and congestion and trying to power through and watch the games, but my excitement for the NHL season finally being here,

helps me power through it. And hopefully the excitement of doing this show and ranking the top 20 defensemen is going to help you power through yours. That's what's gotten me through the last two weeks, man. Yeah, you live a very sad life, my friend. I know, I know. So before we get into ranking the top 20 defensemen, you know, people can go back and we've done the centers and a winger so far, and they can listen to that more for methodology and us

kind of breaking down what goes into these pieces that we're doing. For the defensemen, though, I feel like there's some other bigger picture questions that I wanted to flush out with you because whenever it comes to evaluating defensive play and ranking players playing this position, it's so tricky because if you're just looking purely at offensive production and point totals, you can obviously get led horribly astray and there's so much that goes into the craft and into the position and into making a player effective that might not necessarily be captured by especially traditional. numbers. So when it comes to evaluating a defenseman, what are you, do you have any inherent personal biases in terms of player types that you prefer? Or is there certain skills or certain performance indicators through the numbers that you are looking for that make you go, okay, this is the type of defenseman I value more than someone else might and what other guys contribute? I definitely have to say that the two main things I look at are plus minus and wins.

I'm very much of the Ben Bishop model. The fenceman wins. That's a stat. It's not currently cited a lot, but it should be. It's a stat that I made up myself. But yeah, so the things that I look at and the styles that I prefer, there's definitely some bias in there. I find some of my own biases from a few years ago have been kind of kicked down a notch.

I definitely have less natural inclination to go for the high end. offense-producing defensemen. That still obviously has value, but for example, Brett Burns would be lower on my list than a lot of other people just because of certain big weaknesses in his game. So, yeah, guys like Brent Burns, Roman U.S.i or sometimes push a little bit further down my list because of specific weaknesses. So I like to look at, like I do in all my top 20s for sports and that I break the game

down into three categories that aren't necessarily, you know, separate. I think that everything involves, like transition, for example, is part of offense and part of defense. It's the middle of the road that connects everything. So you can't really isolate anything perfectly, but I like to look at the different components of the game and how they play off each other. And players who aren't great at all three are usually outside my top area. So some guys get a knock down further than you would expect. And then there's, you know, I think I put less value each year into certain all nice statistics because there's just a lot of noise in there that you can't isolate for specific players. I like to look at some of the individual things that they do in order to figure out like, if, say if somebody has like a great core C4 percentage relative to team, but I'm going through all of the data.

and I see like, you know, there's really nothing there individually that they do great. You're kind of left with two options. Do you think that there is something that you're missing that's showing up in the Corsi data or there's some noise in there and the player might be a little bit overrated? And unless it's a player that I've watched and, you know, saw him good and thinks he has a great positioning and there's something that is missing in the data, then usually I err on the side of this player's kind of being inflated by some. somebody else. Yeah. I, yeah, there's a lot to get to there. I'm definitely with you. I feel like I

know it's a bit of a cliche at this point to go with a quote unquote puck moving defenseman, but just in terms of player types that I like or what I prefer, it's sort of that smooth player through transition, whether it's moving the puck himself or whether it's disrupting by defending and then, you know, creating changes of possession that way. I seem to really key in on the zone and focus on it there. It's really tough in certain instances to evaluate some of these guys because you know, for example, with the Columbus pairing, we're going to talk about both Seth Jones and Zach Werenzky and they're both great players in their own right. I think Seth Jones is a superior player, but it's really tricky sometimes to kind of separate whether it's just, you know, a perfectly

symbiotic relationship and both guys are great. And if you split them up and had them playing with separate inferior defense partners, they'd both still be doing fine, or whether one guy is kind of carrying another guy a bit more. We'll talk about sort of what's been going on in Calgary the past few years as well without and Mark Giardano. But it's, you know, like, I think before this season, I believe Zach Wrenski had only played like 200, 5-on-5 minutes or something in his career without Seth Jones by him. And obviously we saw a healthier sample of that earlier this year with Seth Jones out to the beginning of the season. But sometimes it's also really tricky to just know who to give the credit for when two guys are

pretty much linked entirely and on the ice at all times together. And you just don't know how to figure that out as well. Yeah, absolutely. And, you know, I think also you have to kind of figure out where you think the position is going because I think defense is a very dynamic and changing position in the NHL, whereas, you know, 10 years ago, maybe 14 years. ago, you remember, like, you look at the World Cup team that Canada put together and you're like, man, that, that defense corps is just terrible. And it's not even, you know, hindsight bias of

watching those players post-lockout. Like, even pre-lockout, if you would put that together, it's barely better than, you know, an NHL roster of defensemen with like Scott Hannan and old Adam foot, you know, it's a very strange construction. But that was the type of defensemen that was valued back then and that's what the position was like before the crackdown on a obstruction whereas now you know after the lockout there's a heavy movement towards defensemen who could score a lot especially on the power play and now like you said the puck moving defenseman is the big key right so like the defenseman is now almost like a quarterback where they're relied on not necessarily to produce the offense because the league as a whole is

kind of going away from that especially in the power play you see the most successful power plays aren't built around a point shot anymore. That's kind of disappearing. It's all around working the puck down low and getting the buck into the slot for the better snipers, better forwards. And some power plays are, most power plays now, I'd say are down to one defenseman at the top of the point.

Some are down to none. So I think that everything changes every couple of years for defensemen. We're definitely looking as defensemen more as support and disrupt than create and that's an interesting thing to look at because some players can change their game and continue to be a top defenseman while being that support and disrupt player and some players

are so great at creating like say and Eric Carlson that they manage to stay the same player and still be dominant in their field position yes no well yeah of course as the positional demands and requirements are obviously changing as the as the game evolves but it's it's also a bit tricky because, you know, sometimes we can kind of conflate high point totals with being a good quote-unquote puck-moving defenseman. And then there's guys like, you know, whether it was been Anton Straubman over the years or I feel like Hamas-Land-Holm's kind of taken over that mantle or maybe even a Jacob Slavin eventually over the next couple years, where it's like those guys are incredibly smooth and efficient with the puck. And if you watch them,

you know, they're perfectly fine with breakouts and they're great passers. And they get the puck moving in the right direction for their teams a lot, but just because, you know, they're not constantly the center, they're not the centerpiece of the offense and offensive zone where the puck's flowing through them and they're relied upon in a more traditional sense to just wire the puck on that and see what happens, kind of like a Brent Burns type, they might not necessarily be putting up huge point totals.

So I think guys like that can sometimes get lost in the shuffle a bit in these discussions just because, you know, they don't have 40, 50 assists to season. So all of a sudden, people just don't think that they're as offensively gifted as they actually are. And a lot of that has to do with usage as well, right? Like if you are constantly having to be relied upon to play in your own zone against other team's best players, chances are you're probably not going to be having the best or most optimal

offensive output just because that's not the role in what you need to be providing to your team. Yeah, Waransky is a super interesting guy because you look at his start of the season without Jones and it hasn't been great. And I think that's going to be a really fun thing to talk about to see what we believe about him, you know, small sample size, but at the same time, him. It's interesting to see what he's like without Jones. And I think those kinds of pairings, I think it's always tough to tease out, you know, even in players that we know are great separately, like P.K. Suban, Mattis Echolm, you know, Roman Yossi and Ryan Ellis, who's actually driving

those lines or pairings. I find that to be a super interesting continuing question throughout, you know, covering hockey over the last number of many years that I've done. I've been doing it. Yeah, one other trend that I've noticed early in the season has been, you know, teams are just much more willing to hand the car keys to and unleash some of these younger, more skilled defense, some of they were seeing. I feel like maybe five, ten years ago when there was still this kind of prevalent belief around the league in hockey circles that defensemen develop at a later age and

you needed to let them physically mature in season in the lower levels. And on third pairings, now we're seeing whether it's with guys like Ross Mislavid or Mirah Heiskenen or Thomas Shabbat or Henry Yokoharyu, like there's these guys that are all a sudden being relied upon to play heavy minutes on top pairings and thriving. And part of that probably has to do what the game has changed and the positional demands have as well. And you don't need to be some sort of big physical lumbering guy that can clear out traffic in front of your goalie. But hopefully that's something that's going to continue and not just sort of recency bias

or an early season blip on the radar because, yeah, like I said, I feel like a handful of years ago, we wouldn't have been able to, we wouldn't have been treated to watching these guys on such a consistent basis, and we were always clamoring for these young defensemen to get more of an opportunity. And it feels like early on this year, that actually is something that we're seeing materialized. Yeah, I feel like, you know, Miro Heisken's first shift in the NHL this year or first shift of his career probably wouldn't have happened. Or, you know, he would have been sat down on the bench for 10 to 15 minutes afterwards if he had done it a few years ago because, you know, that level of freedom isn't afforded to most players or hasn't been for a really, a long time. But, man, how exciting

is that it is now. I feel like we're kind of in the dawn of a new era in that respect, and I hope that continues because coaches for a long time have kind of been taking some of the fun out of the game. And it seems like that's starting to go away. I think we're in our third straight season now of

increased scoring, and I don't think that's a coincidence. No, I don't think so either. I did have a couple other notes here, because we really should get into these actual rankings. but a topic that is always a fascinating one, and there's a lot of debate and discussion about it, and you could take it in many different ways, but it's sort of what you're looking for

with underlying trends with defensemen in terms of a player, because there's a bunch of guys in recent history that they're thriving in a third pair sheltered roles, and their shot share and everything and all their underlying metrics look amazing, but then if they get, get a larger opportunity and all of a sudden get more put on their plate, obviously they generally don't wind up looking as good. Like what, what sort of things are we looking at beyond,

oh, this third pairing defenseman has a 56% coursey? Like, are we just looking at actually extrapolating that stuff a bit further and going like, okay, this is what's causing that. They're actually a really good pop mover. They're really good at defending zone entries. That'll lead us to believe that they are ready for a bigger role down the line. Yeah, I think it's some of that, some of the individual stuff. But I think it's also, you know, you look at players who are playing third pairing role who are sheltered in specific ways, right? So like, if a player is just sheltered for competition or, you know, zone starts, I feel like most of the time those players can move up the lineup and have a lot of success. But it's when they're sheltered for teammates as well, right?

So like if your third pairing is always playing with possession driving center and they're not willing to risk putting out their third pairing with their fourth line. or a third line where there's a bit more, you know, inherent risk involved and a little bit more defensive responsibility thrust upon them. Then maybe you say, you know, the quality of teammates is fairly high, even though they're being sheltered away from top competitions. So you are a bit more hesitant to move them up to the lineup. But, you know, we've seen a lot of guys recently move up from third pairing and continue to maintain their success. You know, I was kind of dubious about Mark Barbario, but I think after a bit of a rough start this season, you know, he's back to his normal. And last year he was great for Colorado. There's, it seems like every year,

there's a few guys that move up and we're kind of proven that some of those statistics are a little bit more predictive than maybe they were given credit for. Yeah, I mean, I feel like that was a, that was Vegas's expansion draft strategy with guys like Colin Miller and Natchman and even Braden McNaftime. It's like, oh, you know, these guys have had great underlying numbers, but maybe for whatever reason they've been either lost in the shuffle or part of the numbers game or what have you and haven't had an opportunity to play higher up in the lineup on their previous team. And now we're going to give them since there's, you know, no, there's no blockages for them here. There's no nothing in the way. So let's just give them an opportunity and see what comes of it.

And all those guys pretty much for the most part rewarded them. So, yeah, I know, I know it's a bit of a, you know, cliche. There's been guys like, I don't know, who's a classic example. Like, I feel like Eric Jellano for a year or two. and in New Jersey had ridiculous numbers, but as soon as he went to, I believe it was like Colorado, I think, and all of a sudden he was exposed.

So there's been countless examples also of guys who, just because of the way they were being used, were looking a lot better than they were. But I do feel like, you know, that's obviously an interesting thing because we're all constantly looking for, you know, market inefficiencies and ways teams can exploit the market by squeezing out some little additional extra value,

and part of that is probably identity. identifying guys who are playing in lesser roles on different teams and targeting them and, you know, identifying them as guys who could potentially play a much bigger role for you and thrive. And so that's always an interesting discussion for me in terms of what you're looking forward, defensemen, and how you know which way it's going to go with some of these third-parent guys. Yeah, absolutely. And I mean, everybody loves the Julius Honka Awards, right? Yes. We should have had like a Tyler Dello soundbite for this episode to chime in on that. Yeah, see, I feel like he'd be a really interesting guy to talk to because he's one of the few people who kind of doubt Eric Carlson, right?

And I know what he is talking about in terms of like the data that he works with, why he, you know, doubts Eric Carlson a little bit. Because some of the on-ice data is not exactly flattering. And you look at, you know, yes, he's playing on a weak team in Ottawa, but how much should that excuse him in terms of like, you know, on-ice goals, right? like we're a large sample his own high schools are not the best. But then when I look into the individual data and I look at like what he's actually doing defensively, like he comes out on top. It's crazy how good he is and how aggressive of a defender he is that I just find it hard to believe that all of these data points can point towards him being great.

But then the goal thing points towards him being, you know, maybe a little bit overrated. I feel like if anything is lying, it's probably the goals, right? Because if you do all this stuff well, there's just something going on there with, you know, poor partners in Ottawa. And for the last couple years, at least he hasn't had the highest quality of teammates. That's, uh, there's just too much for me pointing towards Eric Carlson still being the best defenseman in the NHL to move him down anywhere. Yeah. Yeah. Um, Eric Carlson being actually good at hockey is some, is a hill I'm willing to die on.

I'll take that side and take on all comrades. Okay, we're going to do, we're going to get into the rankings now finally, 20 minutes in. Yeah, awesome. We're going to take a quick break here to hear from a sponsor, and then we're going to do our honorable mentions on the other side of things, and we're going to get right into the top 20. Getting tickets online can be far too complicated. With hundreds of websites and varying levels of liability, it's hard to know who to trust out there. That's why Ckeeks the way to go, because they're going to pull millions of tickets into one place so you can easily find the seats you want. for a price you're willing to pay.

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Okay, let's rattle off a couple of honorable mentions because I'd say, you know, this wasn't obviously as tricky of a rank. to do as when we did the wingers, for example, just because we smashed the left and right wingers together and there were so many names to choose from. But I feel like there's probably, I'm going to say like 27 or 28, or maybe you could even talk me up to being 30 guys that could potentially be up for consideration for this top 20. So I feel like there's at least a handful of guys that we're going to overlap on that we really wanted to sneak into this top 20, but we just couldn't find space for. And this is the part of the show where we're going to give them a bit of love.

Yeah, absolutely. I'll start out with the Minnesota Twins who basically have the exact same impacts on the game, but do it in extremely different ways in Ryan Souter and Jared Spurgeon. Very, very different players, but end up, you know, offensively, transitionally and defensively having almost identical impacts on the game, which I find really interesting and really crazy. I do as well And Ryan Suter is a tricky player to evaluate because obviously he's rock solid

He doesn't make a ton of mistakes I feel like sometimes Maybe he can be a bit overly conservative With that Especially when it comes to With passes he makes in his own zone But He's also one of those guys

And we still don't have an answer for this And I feel like even last year Or even the year before This came up when we were ranking our defenseman But we still don't necessarily have a definitive answer on sort of what the optimal amount of ice time on the higher extreme is for a defenseman to be fully functional. And I feel like some of that might be, it's probably on a case-by-case basis, and you can't necessarily make a general rule. But when you watch a guy like

Ryan Suter, especially in the past, I know his minutes have come down a little bit, but you can't help or wonder, like, you know, part of that economy and efficiency that is such an asset for him could also be a bit of a detriment because it feels like, you know, it's human nature to not necessarily be going a hundred miles an hour on every shift when you know that you're going to have to be playing 30 minutes that night and it's the first period and there's not much going on and I wonder whether that efficiency costs him a bit in terms of effectiveness just because of the workload and if he played less whether he'd be a more effective player like that's an question that we don't really have an answer to but I think is fair to wonder just based on common sense I guess yeah I feel like

it's the eternal question and it'll be around even after he's you know we're hired is what would Ryan Suter look like if he was playing 22, 23 minutes a night instead. You know, and maybe it's a situation where he's a special defenseman who is at his best playing like that high level of minutes, kind of like Chris Pronger, right? But it's super tough to know. And I guess there's just you have to be satisfied with the idea that sometimes you just won't get an answer. Which is okay. I know it's not necessarily the most satisfying thing for people,

and I'm sure people are tuning into this podcast, and when they read articles and stuff, they do want a definitive answer or some guidance, but rather than steering people down the wrong direction or kind of selling them some snake, well, I think it's okay to pose these questions and kind of think about it, but not necessarily have a definitive answer right away.

I had the, I guess, the Minnesota Twins was a good name. I have the two Washington defensemen. Demetri O'Earloven, Matt Niskinnan, one of my honorable mentions. Oh, you had Matt Niskin that high. Above John Carlson? Add John Carlson to this list, too, sure.

Yeah? I've, yeah, you know, I've talked about Carlson a bunch on this show. I think, like, you know, obviously his individual physical skills and toolset is incredible. There's always been a weird sort of gap there for me between how good he can look at times and what his overall numbers are like. But he's obviously a very effective and use. school defensemen. I do have a bit of a soft spot for the Madnesskin and types where he is sort of like that Anton Straumann kind of defenseman where it's like he's really smooth and he does so much for

his team and he never really puts up the huge offensive numbers because that's partly not his game and I'm sure he doesn't have that high end offensive skill that some of these other guys we're going to talk about do but he's been so effective for so long and that and that top pairing with him and Orlov and Orlov in particular was a name that I want to discuss because I couldn't put him into my top 20 here but during last year Stanley Cup run for them, he was so, so good, and he was doing everything for them in transition, and he really kind of wanted me over. So I just wanted to give them a bit of credit here,

even though I couldn't put them into my top 20. Yeah, I feel like it's not a controversial take on the PDO cast, but in the general hockey world, saying to be true, Orlov is the capital's best defenseman, is probably still a bit of a hot take. I mean, I don't want to denigrate him, but I think John Carlson is one of the, those players that gets knocked down my list quite a lot further than people would expect

because the gaudy offensive numbers aren't necessarily reflective of what he's doing as an individual. I kind of have the same questions about his numbers as I do about Morgan Riley is how much is him and how much is being the guy who happens to be pretty offensively talented, but, you know, not the most talented offensive defenseman in the NHG. but stuck on one of the best power plays the NHL has ever seen. Yeah, well, I'm sure that's not hurting his case. No, no.

What about, I have Matthias Ekholm here as well. I had Mattius Eckholm. Yep, just outside of my top 20. He's so good. He's so good, which I don't want to like, you know, the fact that we don't have in our top 20, which is why I did want to at least give him a bit of love. It's not that he's not worthy of consider.

by any means or he's not a great player it's just yeah there's there's so many um you know individual names here to get to and and he just uh missed the cut by a little bit but yeah he's he's another one of those guys that he's just looks he's tremendous he pretty much does everything well and i i do wonder like if he was in a different circumstance and he was just sort of the guy on let's say kind of a more crappy team that didn't have a ton of well it wasn't blessed with an embarrassment of Riches on the blue line and he had to play like 26, 27 minutes a night and just be the complete workhorse for that team. I'm very curious to see what that would look like and what his numbers would be like. I don't think we have any reason to believe that he wouldn't be

able to handle it, but it would just be fascinating to see. Yeah, I feel like he's the kind of guy that he definitely benefits from having, like everybody obviously benefits from, you know, being stacked at a position that you play at. It helps to play with great players, but he's just continually getting better. His career arc is super interesting to me because as it continues, it seems like earlier in his career, he was a bit hesitant to, you know, use his offensive talent. And he was very focused on defense. And he still is.

He's a great defensive defenseman. But now sometimes you see him pinch and, you know, circle the zone like he's Peter Forsberg and find roots through checks. It's just incredible. Like the amount of talent that he has, he has along with his, like, physical abilities, like he almost looks like he could have been a forward if he wanted to yeah like a dominant power forward yeah during that's not like a final run they had two years ago there was definitely instances where he just like drive the net with a puck and he'd be like oh my god like what if what if this guy just did this all the time and obviously that's not possible but it's it's uh yeah he's got obviously an incredibly enticing skill set and he does a ton for that national team and he deserves some love um another personal favorite of mine uh on the hockey pdfess here and i think he did sneak into your top 20 or at least he did on your original list is Colton Pereko and I felt like that would be a good a good segue here is he on your updated top 20 that you are doing on this show yes yes he is uh he just made it in just like

with the top 20s I really like Colton Pereco I think he's uh he's gonna be a great defenseman for a really long time um the only other guy that I had written down that we haven't mentioned yet as an honor honorable mention and he just like it pained me a little bit to leave him out was Jacob Slavin oh oh Andrew, he's not in your top 20? He's 21, 21. Oh, man, I have him in my top 10. Wow, wow.

It's a bit of a difference. That's good. Yeah, I'm excited to talk about him then when we get up there. Okay, all right, let's do, let's do Paraco now. Let's get into your top 20, and we'll talk more about Slavin when we get closer. All right. Paraco. Yeah, I really like him.

I think he's a really interesting and versatile defenseman. sorry, I'm just trying to like angle myself here. Yeah, repositioning there, getting really excited, how don't bother talking about Colden Prego. Yeah, Colum Breco. I just like watching him, man. Like, he's kind of like a bit of a throwback at times, you know.

He can play that like physical defenseman role. He can move the puck. Great on zone exits. He's another guy that probably, if he wasn't behind, you know, Petrangelo on the depth chart, we'd talk about him a lot more. He's a guy that I think we'd talk about more on, like, web-based platforms than they do on, like,

broadcasts, even though, you know, his rookie year, he definitely got a little bit more press, but I think people have kind of been underrating him since then, because he had a tiny bit of a sophomore slump, but not really, like, under the surface, he was still pretty great. And he's just continued to, you know, get slightly better as his career has gone on. I think he's a fantastic defenseman, a building block that St. Louis obviously really values. Yeah, no, I agree. Yeah, I think he, and he didn't get bumped down my list for this by any means, but he did, I felt like struggle a little bit last year. But I think the bigger trick for me here was just like, I wish, and this isn't a fault of his by any means, but I wish he was used a bit more in St. Louis.

And, you know, part of that is, is they do rely on the petrangelo pairing above him a bit more. And he sort of gets second fiddle duty there. But just for him to crack this top 20 for me, I would have like. to, and this is probably going to come in the next couple years as he develops more and as things changed there in St. Louis, but I just would have liked to see him relied upon and used a bit more heavily, considering some of the other names that are up for discussion here, but I mean, people that listen to the show know that since his rookie year, I've been a big believer. I love that a guy, you know, who profiles the way he does in terms of physical stature

is actually as smooth skating and slick with a puck as he is. and yeah he does pretty much everything well and i'd love to see him use more and he could very easily if we're doing this list again next year be inside this top 20 so um yeah i love golden preco he just uh he was in my like in that 25 to 30 range for me yeah and i feel like that's fair like we discussed on the other podcasts right like the the gap between yeah you know 15 to 30 is not large there's so many good defensemen in the league it's kind of like you have your your unbiased rankings in like groups and then you pick your favorite guys right like you've got your tiered system essentially whereas you know there's like a set there's like the eric carlson then the tier of

four and then a huge group of like 10 or 15 guys and then you know another 20 guys after that so it's don't get as much as it's a ranking don't get too into where exactly guys are placed because i think it's more about naming the guys and talking about how special they are. Yeah, it's amazing how when people listen to the show, they definitely don't ever miss the part where we talk about their player, their favorite player, but they somehow tune out that part, that disclaimer about not getting worked up about the actual ranking.

Good stuff, good stuff. Okay, so where do you have Preiko on your list? Did you have them at 20 or? I have them at 19. I moved up slightly. Let's go, give me like your 20 and you're 18 and we'll just count down that way. Okay, my 20 is a guy that I moved up from my official rankings for Sportsnet a little bit. You can call it bias, but I'm looking more towards the future, and that's Dougie Hamilton.

And then my 18 was Zach Werenski. Okay. I had both Dougie Hamilton and Zach Wrenskiy in that 15 to 20 range, so that works for me. Let's go with Dougie first. So here's a question for you. Why? So this is the third stop now. I guess, you know, early on in his Boston tenure, it's understandable with a younger defenseman not to be just fully unleashed.

But now with going from Calgary to Carolina, I was super excited about what he was going to do with the hurricanes this year. And obviously the hurricanes have been a great story. They've been playing tremendous hockey whenever Dougie Hamilton's on the ice. And pretty much when anyone on that team is on the ice, they are completely dominating the shot counter. yet for whatever reason now, yet again, I feel like Dougie Hamilton is being underutilized. Yeah, this is a confusing one to me because there aren't very many, you know, what would I call it, like hiccups in Hamilton's game that make you think like, okay, you know, this is why the coach doesn't fully trust him.

You know, like, overall, like, I think he's a little bit overrated by the general analytics community, I think playing with Mark Dior-Dano helps everyone, but he's still a top-end defenseman, like a number one defenseman on almost every team. So it's very confusing to me why he kind of continually gets second pair style minutes. I can't figure it. I've been trying to because, you know, when he went to Carolina, I figured, you know, maybe his minutes would be a little bit lower than that people expected simply because of the fact that their top five is absolutely absurd. And they've got to find a way to get minutes to all those players.

So it would be a bit more balanced. But, you know, I haven't watched any Carolina games in the last week or two, but I think he's still not on the first power play, right? No, he's not. So he's playing under 20 minutes a night. And, you know, at 5-15, I believe he's second on the team behind Slavin. in terms of 515 usage. But yeah, he's not in the first unit power play, and he doesn't kill penalties for them.

It's weird to me that, you know, obviously his point totals and his ability to score goals from that position is kind of his calling card or something he's really good at. But if you, if you, like, he's clearly trusted by the coaching staff to play on that top, quote unquote, shut down defense pairing with Slavin at 515,

yet for whatever reason he's not relied upon to be on the penalty kill. and yeah, on the power play. And that's what's bizarre to me because, you know, in the past in Calgary would be like, okay, he needs to be playing much more at 5-1-5, but at least they were using him on special teams. And now in Carolina, it's kind of flip-flop, but the overall package of his total usage is still not nearly enough. Like a guy of his caliber should not be playing under 20 minutes tonight. Yeah, it doesn't make much sense.

I think that's the main thing that really confuses me is, you know, far be it from me to question the Carolina Hurricanes right now because Rod Brindamore has them humming. Like they are playing fantastic hockey. But it is super strange to see a guy like Hamilton be trusted in ways that he hasn't been, you know, earlier in his career. You know, like there's no problems five on five, but then not putting him on the power play. I mean, maybe it's just their powerplay setup isn't built to his skill set.

I'm just not sure. But that is just so strange. It's been very bad so far, I feel like. Definitely their penalty go. I don't know what their power play numbers, but I feel like it has room to improve. Like their 5-1-5 has been immaculate. I feel like the special teams and the goal attending

are the two areas they could fix and maybe they should try them in net, I guess. I don't know. Try them in net. Yeah, there are a lot of questions like that around the league where I just can't figure it out. And some of it is just like coaches like a certain player and they like a certain specific thing that they do on that area.

But when you're not getting results, Usually coaches shake it up, right? Like, I guess sometimes if there had been a history of results, they don't. Like, I remember watching, you know, the Dale Weiss saga in Montreal where Weiss, I think it was like in October, he had something like eight goals one year. And he basically rode shotgun with Max Patch ready for the entire rest of the year because of it. He got power play time because of it.

And he scored like maybe four more goals the rest of the year. And, you know, they just kept on going back to it and going back to it. going back to it and going back to it. And, you know, last year in Montreal, a similar thing happened with Nick Deloree, who has had trouble sticking in the NHL for a variety of very good reasons throughout his career. But he had this like crazy shooting percentage last year. And I think he hit 10 goals. And then this year, you know, they've scratched Andrew Shaw for him. And, you know, Andrew Shaw is not a perfect player by any means and has been overrated at times because of the cup wins. But I think he's a, he's a really good middle six winger.

and to scratch him for a fourth line guy because he had a great shooting percentage is, you know, kind of insane. But those are the kinds of things that coaches do that drive people like you and I'm mad. But the Hamilton thing, it doesn't make sense because he has the history of success. He is being trusted at five on five. It's crazy to me, especially, you know, a guy who,

I think Hamilton's increased his goal scoring like every one of the last five years or something like that, hasn't he? Yeah. No, I mean, he's, listen, he's a, He's a great player. And I think part of that, part of it can be kind of as simple as there's a certain human element or personal preference or bias involved with, with coaches. And I feel like this happens a lot in hockey circles.

And I'm sure it happens in every industry. But like when a guy gets a rep for something or there's like, the industry just kind of decides that we're going to view a player a certain way, it's really tough to shake those labels or kind of change that perception. So the fact that a guy goes from one team to another might not immediately change the way he's used because, you know, we know definitely that coaches aren't typically the very aggressive types

in terms of going against the grain sometimes and you can kind of go with status quo. And so I know Rod Brinnamore has done a really good job so far in Carolina and the hurricanes are, you know, mixing stuff up and having some fun out there. But it can sometimes be as simple as like if a guy comes in with a certain set of baggage all of a sudden it's really tough to shake that

and the coach that's inheriting that player might just kind of go with that like in the past it's like oh Dougie Hamilton has all these flaws and we're not sure about him as a player and the new coach might just kind of go with that as sort of the working definition of that player rather than evaluating it from scratch

and that can be kind of frustrating sometimes. Yeah absolutely. So we should probably move on from Hamilton before it becomes the Hamilton podcast to Zach Wren So rough start for Werensky to start the season, but I don't know, I look at him, I look at the individual stuff. I'm not that worried. Are you worried?

No, no, no, no. I'm not. It's been a strange start today year in Columbus, and a lot of that probably has to do with the fact that they just haven't gotten the goaltending they'd expect that at Sergey Bavrovsky. And I believe last night, Thursday night in San Jose, he had 40 plus saves and gave up only one goal against San Jose. And yeah, if he gives them more of those performances, I feel like that team's going to turn it around. And I know what you mean, but I guess part of it is like maybe just going from playing with Seth Jones to playing with David Savard for all those minutes and Marcus Nudivara. Just that's a pretty big step down and might not necessarily be a huge indictment of Zach Wrenzki, especially over like a 10 game sample or whatever it was. Yeah.

I think that's also one of the things that kind of gets missed a lot when we look at like wow, he's like what is the player that's replacing. the good player like. And, you know, I don't want to crap on Nutavar or Savard, but they, they certainly aren't Seth Jones. And when you're thrust into the tough minutes that, that Warnski plays, it's a bit of a struggle to continue to play at the same level. But at the same time, I would expect Werencki to maintain, you know, positive differentials. And that hasn't been the case for him so far.

I just, I think maybe it's a combination of losing Jones and just not having a good personal start as well. Maybe, you know, he psyched himself out a little bit, uh, knowing that Jones wouldn't be around for the start of the season. Maybe it's just, you know, a rough start for various other reasons. Maybe he's nursing something. But, uh, Werensky's a guy who, you know, from his rookie year onward, I've been really, really hyped up about because, uh, looking back at, you know, the total, um, impacts of his rookie season, he actually should have been a, Norris nominee that first year, which is crazy. So, like, his first year in the, in the, the NHL, he was actually better than Jones. And last year, Jones was the better player.

So I find it interesting that it kind of alternated each year who was, you know, boosting the other one more. Those are two good players that, you know, Columbus is going to be a tough out once they're both back and healthy. Yeah, I feel like if, if that 10-game stretch happened in the middle of the season that he just had. Yeah, no one cares. Yeah, it would just be like, you know, oh, whatever. It's a mid-season swoon and at his age and with his talent, there's no reason to believe that, you know, he randomly dropped off in terms of talent level over the summer.

So it's, uh, I think he's going to be perfectly fine. And I'm excited to watch that pairing reunited. I do believe, though, last year, Wrenski did miss some time, right? And Seth Jones, like, really turned it up even an extra gear without him, which I thought was interesting, but, you know, I think we'd both agree that Seth Jones is the superior player on that pairing, but there's plenty of room for both guys to be on this list. Yeah, and I think it's also, it's worth noting the superior player right now, you know, at a certain point in their careers, Boransky might overtake Jones, but at this stage right now, I would say Jones is the superior

player, and it keeps getting better. I don't know, like, I don't know Jones really closely in terms what he's like personally. You know, I haven't seen very many interviews with him, but he just strikes me as like hyper-motivated. You know what I mean? Like you remember a couple years ago he quoted like one day he was going to win the Norris? He was quoted as saying. And I feel like to say that as a young player shows an attitude of, you know,

not only wanting to be the best, but like knowing that you have the capability to be the best. And I love that. I love that attitude from Jones. And you can see that he's worked at different areas. of his game to become better. You know, last year he just had a great offensive season in terms of directly creating offense that he hasn't really had before then. So he's always been a great passer, but he has been kind of more indirectly involved in the

offense. And last year, he just became a much more aggressive player. And I can't wait for him to get back because he's one of my favorite fans been to watch right now. Yeah, I think he, yeah, he proclaimed that he was going to win the Norris one day. And I think he will. I think he was on my on my fake battle last year. So I thought he had a one heck of a season.

Okay, so we have, we have 2019 and 18 on your list. Let's keep going. All right. So at 17, I have Morgan Riley. I moved him up a little bit from my official stats base list, just because, you know, great start to this season. And it seems like his offensive explosion is a bit more real than just one year. Part of that's playing on that power play.

but I've really liked his play without the puck as well. I think Mike Babcock has done a great job developing Morgan Riley. The only hesitation I have with moving him further up the list, which I'm sure, you know, Maple Leafs might be angry at him being outside the top 15 is I just wonder how much of his actual offensive production is because he plays on that powerplay and with those great players and how much of it is actually, you know, Morgan Riley doing the work. And I just have questions about that at this point.

I feel like eventually the data will let us know, but right at this moment, Riley is in this range for me, below 15. Yeah, I think that's all well said. Let's keep going with your list. I feel like Morgan Riley gets enough coverage on other shows. Really? You think the Maple Leafs get enough coverage? A little amount. A little amount, yeah, fair a bit.

All right. Next on my list is Dustin Bufflin at 16, who, you know, he's starting to age a little bit, I would say. But the man's still a monster. Aren't we all? Yeah, it's true. Yeah, Bufflin is, he's menacing, man. When he's on his game, I know he's kind of seen as a slow defenseman, and that can be true agility-wise.

You know, he's not the fastest turner. He's a bit of a boat. But in straight lines, he can build up speed if you give him a little bit of space. And, you know, he can create a lot of offense off the rush, actually, because once he gets going, you're not going to stop him. You know, he'll just plow right through you. You could try to check him, but you might die. And he also happens to be the best puck battler in the entire NHL.

He's just too strong. You know, you can't beat him for a loose puck. It's not going to happen. I just find him endlessly entertaining because he can play whatever way you want. He can play that, like, grind it out physical game and just punish you. He can, you know, pinch into the high slot and take a slapper out of nowhere that no one was expecting. he's just a smart player and he's he's kind of a throwback you know like he can play in any era and be a dominant player i think yeah i think um i mean i love him i have him in my top 20 i understand

that uh you know sometimes he can uh be i don't know not necessarily careless but like he can sometimes try to force the puck into uh areas that maybe he'd be better served making a more rat and suitor type conservative pass but i mean that's part of what what makes him special is he makes some of those stretch passes that other guys simply don't have the vision or the desire to pull off. And, yeah, when he's going on his game, like we saw in the last postseason, he's one of my favorite players to watch. Just some of the stuff he's capable of pulling off physically is remarkable. And, yeah, he is, I don't know how much longer his shelf life is in terms of being on this list and being at this level. But for now, he's still there and he's still an integral part of a Jets team and a Jets blue line that

we consider to be very high up there. So, yeah, he deserves to be on this list. Yeah, I think the one thing with Bufflin that, you know, can be concerning at times is he's an extremely aggressive defender without the puck. So, like, he's always going to try to take it away from a player. He's not going to just play positionally. And because of that lack of agility, if he misses his check, you know, he's kind of out of it. And then you're running around your entire shift trying to cover for him.

So that's the main thing with me for Buffalo. like the draw rack and what keeps him out of being like a top 10 defenseman is he can get himself into trouble with his aggressiveness yeah no i agree but i mean ultimately um it's sort of uh what you create versus what you give up with that and he obviously creates a bit more uh or a lot more for his team right so it's uh i understand why people are sometimes um you know scared off by guys who sometimes make those mistakes or stuff that seems like it could be preventable. But at the end of the day, like if you're creating a lot more over the long haul with some of that aggressiveness, then I'll take that on my team any day, even if it's going to result on some bad goals against.

Yeah, 100%. 100% agree. Okay, let's keep going. All right. So next on my list is Jeff Petrie. What number is this? This is 15. Okay.

So I moved him slightly down from where I had him just based on the data. not for any reason other than I like a couple guys a little bit more, but Petrie, I think, has really been shown to be a dominant first pairing defenseman ever since Shea Weber started getting injured here. I know a lot of people get focused on plus minus, but I don't really care about that. If you look at the minutes that he's playing, especially with the partners that he's had to play with,

you know, carrying guys like Carl Olsner around for a full season, he's just been incredible. And he's unlocked some offensive potential as well. I don't want to say potential, but he's unlocked his offensive ability in having to cover for that first power play unit. They haven't been that good this year. They haven't really figured out a smart setup with Galenek gone. But last season when they had that Galchenech, Drew and Petrie essentially kind of like an umbrella where they were going for either Galchenech or Petri's shot. They were actually incredible.

It was like the one bright spot for the Canadians last year. And I really like Jeff Petrie. I think he's a great transition defenseman, much better defensively than people give him credit for, especially on the penalty kill. The one area that consistently makes people underrate him is one-on-one. He can get beat a lot.

It's not the only thing in the NHL for defense. There's lots of different plays that aren't one-on-one, but when he's defending one-on-one, he tends to get walked a fair amount. Yeah, but I mean, at the same time, like if you are a top defenseman playing against other teams, best players, that's probably going to happen. A couple times, it's kind of like with basketball,

it's like if a center gets dunked on, it's like, well, if you keep trying to block shots, eventually you will wind up on a poster and it happens. But I think, like, Petrie just missed my list. He was on the cusp. They're on the honorable mentions. I'm a big fan of his game. He's incredibly

smooth. I wonder, like, there's certain guys like him that for whatever reason just to seem to inspire a very irrational amount of hatred and angst amongst fans. I don't know, like I feel like I see people rag on Jeff Petrie and criticize whenever people praise him, there's like such weird pushback and vitriol for a player that's as good as he is.

Like, I don't know what causes that is it is the start of his career in Edmonton. Or I don't know, like, I feel like it even dates back to then because obviously the Oilers gave up on him for a ridiculously low price. I think it's as simple as, you know, he winds up on the highlight reels for, for getting walked. He just has a propensity that like when he does make a mistake, he looks really bad. It's similar to the same thing that happens with,

you know, P.K. Suban, you know, like he makes so many daring plays that like sometimes he'll take a puck behind the net and try to pass it up the middle, right to an opponent in the slot, and it'll end up in the back of his net. It doesn't happen very often, but when it does, it's on the broadcast 50 times over the next week. And that's what people remember, right?

So I think that same kind of thing happens with Petrie, not necessarily to a greater extent, but because he's less known as, you know, an offensive driver, people are more prone to remembering those defensive gaffs. Even though, like, he is a stalwart defensive player overall, you know, like in zone defense, he's fantastic defending off the rush, like at the blue line, really, really good. but he does tend to get lit up a little bit in like the low slot area he's kind of like the opposite of shei weber where like his shot suppression fantastic uh really good at defending the high slot keeping those shots down so like sniper players who like to hang out in the high slot like the

tarasankos and those guys don't necessarily punish petri unless they're one-on-one like in zone defense he's good at defending those players but guys who get really into the low slot, like, you know, your Brad Marchons, you're, it's on the same team, but you're Brennan Gallagher's, your Victor Arvinsens,

those guys can score against Petrie a lot. So those, I think those chances in front of the net where you're a defenseman and you're not knocking a guy out of the crease, you're not crease clearing. For some reason, a lot of fans get really frustrated

with those kinds of plays. And that tends to be what he ends up on highlights for defensively. Do you think Brennan Gallagher is just feasting on him in practice, just scoring every time out there. I don't know. He's score on everyone in the NHL anyways during these games. So, uh, I'm sure he's... Yeah, I mean, it's possible.

I think right now the main thing that I've seen, uh, from practices, Gallagher and Domey having, like, face-off battles to try to get Domi to win more face-offs in games and Gallagher's just beating him embarrassingly and then, like, publishing it on Instagram. So that's pretty funny. I don't know how much they aggressively play scrimages, though. I feel like Jeff Petrie gets held back all. also by having kind of an uninspiring name.

Like, I feel like if he had, like, an exotic, like if he was like Johann Petterson or something, I feel like people would be much more excited about him as a player. I don't know why. I just feel like, like, not like, you know, like Ryan Ellis. I don't think Ryan Ellis has a particularly exotic, sexy name by any means. But I feel like Jeff Petrie for whatever reason,

like as soon as people hear that, they just kind of check out. Yeah, I think that's definitely a possibility. It's kind of the same thing with like Shane Gostis Bear and Ivan Proverov, right? Like, they're excellent, but at the same time, they have super cool names also. So they're, like, really eye-rabbing. Yeah, it's kind of like the same thing as Craig Smith and Nashville, right? We're like, nobody cares about Craig Smith because his name is Craig Smith, but he's really good. You know, a really underrated player.

Yeah, I wouldn't be surprised if it's partially the name thing. Man, that, yeah, that new Habs defenseman, Johann Pedersen, he's been killing it this year. Okay, let's get going on. We're inside your top 15. This is exciting. We're moving. All right. So my next one is Chris Littang.

Yep, also on my list. I actually would have had him, I considered him for my top 10. I think, I know he played 79 games last year, but it felt like he was, you know, hampered by injury, even though he was playing through it. And obviously, he's missed a ton of time over the past couple years. So, you know, that consistency and durability is obviously something once we kind of have to nitpick at the top of this list with the best defensemen in the world that is getting come into play a bit more. but it seems like he's, I know he just missed the game recently, but it seems like he's pretty healthy this year,

and he's been playing really well, which is obviously great to see, and he's arguably one of the most important players in the league just in terms of what is behind him at that position and sort of what he needs, like how much he needs to do when he's playing at the top of his game for that Penguins team. So hopefully you can stay in the lineup and stay healthy and put together a complete season,

because obviously that the skill set of his when he's out there is incredibly fun to watch and super effective. Yeah, another guy who's pretty underrated defensively as well. Another guy who ends up on the wrong side of highlight reels a lot, partially because he's playing against great players and partially because, you know, he's trying to accomplish something all the time. He's not just a guy who's going to bang it off the glass and out, and sometimes the goals that happen are, you know, highlight reels instead of the ugly ones that happen because of boring mistakes.

You know, he makes the big mistakes. And I think that's a kind of mental block that we have to try to get past with players. Well, we'll call it Jake Gardner disease. But, yeah, I think the main thing with Lutang that holds him back a little bit for me is I think his offensive numbers are a wee bit inflated from playing his whole career with Malcolm and Crosby. Yeah. Yeah, no, for sure. You know what? Last year, I remember he, like, his name surfaced in trade rumors at some point.

born in the season and no surprise when you looked a bit deeper like he was having a historically unfortunate season from his goalie stopping the buck when he was out on the ice i don't know what it wound up at the end of the year but i remember like part way through the season i mean they were stopping like 85% of the shots or something with him on the ice and obviously uh when that's happening guys are going to look a lot worse defensively than they are just because they're constantly uh racking up minuses and kind of being on these highlight reels whether they're with their heads, heads down after being on the ice for a goal against, but I don't expect that to continue. And I don't think that's some sort of inherent flaw that he was driving himself, as we've

seen over the years. So yeah, you're right. I mean, obviously with the point totals and especially the power play production, he has a pretty cushy gig in terms of just give the puck over to Crosby and Malkin and get out of the way and get that secondary assist. But he also, especially a 5-1-5 with his puck moving and his transition play, creates a ton for them as well, especially with how fast they want to play and what makes them tick at 5-15, I feel like he's incredibly important, especially when you look at who's behind him, and now with Justin Schultz out,

I mean, there's just way too much Olimata and Jamie Alexiak on that team, and they really need Whistletang to shoulder a heavy workload for them to be effective. Yeah, I feel like, you know, he really benefited from the requiring Jack Johnson. Sorry, I couldn't even keep that throughout that sentence. Yeah, okay. I'm going to let that one go. Let's keep going. So LaTang was 14 for you. Give me, give me 13, 12, and 11. And then we're going to take a break it up. 13, 12, and 11. I've got two ducks in Hampus Linholm and Cam Fowler. And then I've got the top guy in St. Louis and Petrangelo. Okay, so I had Hampas Linholm inside my top 10. I had Alex Petrangelo here in the teens. And Cam Fowler, I was excited to talk about this.

with you because he's the type of player that I love watching play and like that skill set of his especially it was it two years ago when they made the western conference final like he was playing at such a high level and then obviously he got what I thought was a was a bit too pricey of an extension I would have possibly tried to trade him based on how their roster was constructed at the time but I don't have him in my top 20 and I remember when I read your sports net piece I was a bit blown away by how high you had him. And it makes sense with the transition data and I'm sure his individual totals are all

through the through the roof, but I don't know. I, uh, I have him as like, I think he's pretty clearly the third best defenseman on that team for me. But yeah, you clearly obviously aren't as high as Josh Manson as I am and you,

you seem to love yourself a little Cam Fowler. Yeah, Fowler for whatever reason, um, his dominance doesn't really show up in the on-ice data for in a lot of different ways. Some of the stuff that I have in terms of like high danger chances and, you know, pass to the slot on-ice data, that kind of stuff. He shows up and well, but in the public data, he doesn't show up as a dominant player

by any stretch, even though he's, you know, passed to the eye test pretty well with flying colors. I just really like his ability to move the puck. he's actually a really good defensive player as well for whatever reason he's been stuck with pretty poor partners through most of his career you know spent a lot of time with old Kevin B. Exa which doesn't help things but

he's just a player that for whatever reason the individual data is incredible and the on-ice data is not so great yeah and I mean it makes sense like when you watch him play obviously like he's one of the best skaters in the league and he can really move the puck. It's, I mean, this year, it's interesting because they split up that Manson-Lin-Home pairing. And I believe Manson's been playing mostly with Fowler, and it's been Lin-Home and Montour.

And both pairings have been caved in. And I don't know what's going on there with Carlisle and the Ducks. It seems like whatever they try to do isn't working at this point. But yeah, you're right. I mean, he kind of got lost in the shuffle with the defense pairings in the past. and he's gotten to play with Manson this year, and it hasn't really worked out, but it hasn't worked out for anyone in Anaheim,

so I'm not going to ding him too much for that. But I don't know. Yeah, you're right. I mean, you clearly have access to numbers that paint him in a more favorable light than the stuff we do have publicly, that's for sure. Yeah, and the ducks are such a weird team now. Like, it seemed like, you know, last year

they were a bit of a team that was behind the eight ball in terms of where the NHL was going, but they were still having. halfway decent at least. You know, like, there are certain things that Carlisle does, like, not to make fun of our friend Mike Kelly, but his old tweet about, like, the things that Colorado does gives them a great PDO. Some of the things that Anaheim did the last couple of years under Carlisle did reduce shot

quality against, even though their, you know, shot differential was not very good. You know, this is one of the reasons why I kind of doubted John Gibson a little bit. last year, like I had him within my top 10 goalies, but I didn't have him as high in terms of, like, goals saved above average as a lot of people did. So part of the reason for that is because the ducks were actually very good at limiting shot quality against. This year, that's completely disappeared. I don't know if it's injury problems that they've had or just that teams have exposed their

system to a ridiculous degree, but Gibson has been heroic. and if he hadn't been arguably the best player in the entire NHL in October, I don't think the Ducks would have won a single game. They've been incredibly bad, and I don't even know what the problem is, because frankly, I don't make appointments viewing for the Anaheim Ducks the last few years because they're kind of a boring team to watch outside of the individual performances because of the system that they play. Yeah.

Yeah, and obviously, you know, they've had injuries and they've had to rely upon some younger players they're probably in over their heads, but they've been bad to the level where it's like that's quits being an excuse and there's something deeper rooted and like fatally flawed with that team because some of these numbers they're putting up are just, uh, are jaw-droppingly bad. Petrangelo quickly. I feel like he's dropped the ball a little bit here because I feel like this was a great year for him to sneak in and win a Norris as sort of, oh, this is Alex Petrangelo's year, but the blues have been so shaky to start the year and he has.

and been great himself and he certainly hasn't been putting up the counting numbers. So, you know, it's early on. But for whatever reason, the preseason, I kept looking back at him on the Norris odds and being like, I feel like this could be a year that people just randomly mount a massive case for Alex Petrangelo to get rewarded for the career he's had so far. Well, I think the beginning of last year was going to be that year, too. Like, I remember there was some buzz around him for the Norris. And I don't know if it was necessarily deserved or not.

I think he had a decent start, but not like, you know, career defining. But yeah, you think that he's, if not next in line right there with Ekman Larson and John Klingberg as the guys who are due for a Norris. But I think Klingberg is obviously the guy who's most likely to get it just because his performance level is so high. So I score like 60 goals this year? Yeah, exactly. You know, shoot 20% the whole year.

But yeah, I've been kind of disappointed with his start, but that's the whole. the whole of St. Louis, I think Petrangelo is still the same player, a dominant transition player, halfway decent defensively, but not amazing, partially because of his penalty killing. I think the one thing that stands out to Petrangelo, stands out about Petrangelo for me that is very confusing is at 5 on 5, 5, I think he's probably a top 10 defenseman in the league, but on special teams for years now.

Like, the sample size is obviously not the same as 5 on 5, but it's starting to get pretty large. He's really bad. He's one of the worst penalty killers in the league among the top defensemen, and he's not so great on the power play either. So I'm not sure what's going on there, but I asked a question this summer of Bluefans, like, what do you think of Petrangelo on the PK?

And the responses were like pretty uniformly positive, and they were blaming Bowmeister for, you know, any problems that he had, but Bowmeister's actually like halfway decent on the PK. And when he's been away from Petrangelo on the PK, Petrangelo on the PKK, he's been quite good. Not to say that Beaumaster is a great defenseman or anything, he's fallen off quite severely, especially 5-15. But Petrangelo's special teams are, like, oddly bad. It's very strange.

Yeah. Yeah, I mean, Patrangelo is an interesting case because I think the individual talent is there, but some of his – I'm talking about 5-1-5. Some of his numbers definitely get impacted by his usage and also, like, Jay Bolmeister at this point of his career, He had a great, great career, but it might be time to consider hanging them up soon. I think he is incredibly washed up, and it's shocking to me that he's still getting the types of minutes that he is on that team, and it's pretty much entirely based on name-brand value as opposed to actual performance. So freeing Petrangelo up from that and giving him a partner who could actually hold up his end of the bargain would help quite a bit.

But yeah, he's a fascinating case because I feel like, you know, with the team Canada connections and the way people talk about him sometimes in the mainstream media, Um, like we're both clearly, uh, high on him as well. He's in our top 15, but like, I think some people would tell you that he's like a top five defenseman or definitely top 10 and I just don't, I'm not comfortable having him that high on my list. Um, and I, I'm not sure what the discrepancy in there is. It just seems like he's just, he's like the opposite of Jeff Petrie where people just love talking about oxpetrangelo. Yeah, he's definitely a song good player. And I remember, you know, like the fact that he's like a, a. A. A. guaranteed lock for Team Canada, whereas guys like, you know, P.K.C. Suban and Chris Latang are like really questionable when, you know, I think Latang is very close to him in impact and, you know, maybe a little bit less impressive defensively, but overall their impacts are about the same. And, you know, I think P.K. Suban is significantly better than Petrangelo in a lot of aspects. So it's really odd how much he's loved. But I guess he's like a staple team. guy's whole life, right? It's kind of like he's, he's in a lot of ways, the Jay Beaumister of his

generation, where he's good, but he's not quite as good as his perception. I would say Jay Beaumister was never as good as Petrangelo, though. I think your point about him being, you know, falling off the cliff, I had Jay Beaumister rated 153rd among the defensemen that I rated over the last three years. And just to give you a clue of how bad that is, he's below Cody Cici. Yeah, that's really bad. He's, yeah, I'm 153rd as well. I only ranked 1502 guys, though.

But Jabbyo missed the cut on my, Jabal Mistsor missed the cut on my top 152. Yeah, Alex Petrangelo. I was going to make some, I was going to make another comment there, but I forgot what it was. Anyways, let's take a quick break here and then we're going to get into,

we're going to get into the top 10, right? Yep. Okay. Quick break here and we'll do Andrew Berksh Friars top 10. I know it's technically a little break in the show here, but here on the Hockey PDO cast, we never stop with the analytics. And that's why I've got another number for you.

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But we're in your top 10. So this is going to be exciting. I'm now nervous about who I've left now. Okay, let's start rattling them off. Give me a top 10 now. You want me to do the whole top 10? Don't do the hot. Let's do like, give me a couple names. Okay. So I'm going to go 10 to 8. I have, and number 10, Roman Yossi, then number nine, Brent Burns, then number eight,

Ekman Larson. The biggest riser for me is Ekman Larson. I thought he was phenomenal last year. I think now that there's a little bit more time to see that he's not just the guy to staunch the bleeding. He's actually creating some stuff too. Yeah, it was such a mess there for so long. It's that it becomes really tough to value players and I feel like especially with a skilled puck mover like Ekema Larson, um, quality of teammates comes into play just because I feel like a lot was being left on the ice because the guys he was passing to or attempting to pass to weren't nearly as gifted and

both in terms of physically, but also in terms of thinking the game as him. So I feel like, uh, you know, he wasn't able to really optimize his skill set. And, you know, for years there, his partners were he, I think he went from Zabeneck-McCollick to at the end of his career to Luke Shen, to Michael Stone, to, I don't even know who else, Connor Murphy. And now last year and this year, he seems to have struck a really nice partnership with Jason Demers. And I'm not surprised to see that his numbers have gone up as a result.

Yeah, it's super interesting to see what he can get to because I think he's a bit of a dark horse for the Norris if Arizona can kind of get over there, PDO hell of the first, you know, month of the season. And I think that's, you know, if Alice Galchiniac can be as good of a center as I think he can be, which, you know, that ship may have sailed over the last couple of years. I think there's been some serious damage to his career prospects by the way that he was playing in a couple injuries that he suffered. But, you know, if they can get the best out of him, I think Arizona's like a borderline

playoff team. Is that like a crazy hot take? I think anti-Ranta is also like an incredible difference maker for them if you can stay healthy all year. Oh, absolutely. There's obviously a bunch of stuff that needs to fall in the place. But what we've seen with that Pacific Division, there's no reason to believe they, at this point, can sneak in there. Obviously, they started off the year really snake-bidden at 5-1-5. I believe it took them like a handful of games to score their first 5-on-5 goal as a team. But they've really turned it on lately. And that drubbing they had of Tampa Bay the other day was incredibly impressive. Yeah, even with the, you know, I think headman's out, but even with,

injuries, Tampa Bay is a really tough team to do that too. And you can learn less about any, like, what am I trying to say here? Blowouts probably tell you less about your team than any other kind of game. For sure. But at the same time, being capable of doing that against a team like Tampa Bay, it says that there's more talent there than there has been in recent years. I'm excited to see what Arizona can implement as the season goes on, because if they can actually get a little bit of puck luck going their way,

It's an interesting team. They've got some depth there. They've got some players who are a little bit underrated. I like some of the things that John Jake has done in acquiring certain players that teams kind of undervalued over the last couple years. Yeah. No, things are coming together there in Arizona. I'm excited to watch how it unfolds. So you mentioned Roman Yosi.

Actually, he's on my top 20. I had him in my teens. But I actually have, like, obviously have PKK ahead of them in terms of teammates. I also have Ryan Ellis ahead of him. Yeah, Ryan Ellis for some reason did not rate as well for me. He had a great season last year when he came back from injury. I think honestly down the stretch, he was their best defenseman. And then in the playoffs, he just like, he was awful.

Like really, really awful. So it's, I think the main problem that I have with Ryan Ellis is that he can fluctuate so wildly. And, you know, maybe part of the problem there is, He's not the best fit with Romanoisi because it's tough for a guy like him to be the shutdown guy. He can play it well at times, but then he kind of falls off a little bit, gets exhausted. And Romaniosi demands a lot of his partner defensively because he takes a lot of risks. I'm curious, I forget, when we were ranking our top wingers, where did you have Romaniosie on your list? No, on the top winger.

Like number five, number five. No, I love both those guys, and they're such an interesting pairing just based on their individual skill sets and sort of, I guess, yeah, what Ryan Ellis has to do to compensate for Roman Yossi's end-to-end rushes at times and being out of position, but they're obviously, both of them are very effective together, and I do like that compliment. And I don't know, I just have this soft spot for Ryan Ellis. I feel like when people talk about all those blue letters in Nashville, obviously, you know, Yossi and C. And, you band get most of the love and then i feel like matthias heckholm gets a lot of like one of the best names you've never heard of before never really talked about is is matias hecone but ryan ellis just for whatever reason gets lost up and lost in that shuffle a little bit and i think he's a he's a heck of a player who does like a little bit of everything well and he's also one of those guys that i feel similar to what we were talking about with with at home if he was on a worse team with uh with fewer guys around him at that position he could potentially you know be putting up just ridiculous

point totals if he was asked to do so and had the opportunity to do so and all of a sudden people would be like holy shit Ryan Ellis is so good but I'm sure he's enjoying his life right now playing with Romaniosi on a ridiculous second pairing yeah he's got to be since he signed that big contract with quite a severe discount right so yeah I really like Ryan Alice I think you're right that he does kind of get ignored a little bit I mean even when you think about like the biggest moment of his career was probably that Jordan Everly tying goal against Russia in the world juniors and everyone talks about Jordan Eberle and everyone talks about

John Tavares on that play but Ryan Ellis is the guy who held the puck at the blue line and actually made that happen right and no one really remembers that for whatever reason he made a fantastic playhold I think he held the puck in with his skate at the blue line and controlled it and sent it down to Tavares so yeah he does kind of get ignored a little bit

I like Ryan Ellis a lot but Roman Yosey the reason why I had him so high it's all down to his offense and transition game. He's one of the best in the league at both, and it somehow compensates for him being really porous defensively. He's not very good at covering his defensive warts in terms of in-zone defense, but once he actually gets the puck,

he gets it out of the zone, and that makes a big impact on actual goals gains. So it actually works out, despite the fact that he struggles defending off the rush. He struggles defending in zone, but... Yeah, he's just good. He's a one-man fast break. And he can single-hand-to-leaf-the-ice,

and that's always an incredibly valuable player. So, no, you're right. He's worthy of being on this list. So we're inside your... Are we getting your top 10? Yes, we are. Okay, so sorry, yeah. So Yosey was 8, I believe?

You know, he was 10. O'S he was 10. Okay. So let's keep going. Nine is Brent Burns. And he's a guy that I moved down. He's a really weird player because actually without the puck, he's fantastic. He's a really aggressive defender.

He's good positionally. And he wins battles like crazy because he's just, you know, a bear. But when he has the puck on his stick outside the offensive zone, he is one of the riskiest players in the entire league. He's always trying to make something happen, which I approve of, but he is a massive turnover machine. Huge amount of counterattack chances happen with Brent Burns on the ice. And I think that's a big reason why San Jose has kind of used him in a role where Vlasic has taken all of the tough minutes and just been caved in. And Burns just feasted on the lower end of lineups because it's a rough go for him.

removing the puck a lot of the time. Yes, it is. He can be for as talented as he is and skilled with a puck. I do think he can, and I don't toss this around lightly because I feel like people sometimes use this term and it's not, doesn't really apply, but I feel like he can be sloppy with the puck sometimes. And it just, it comes off as, I don't want to say he's lazy, but it just comes off as maybe just because of the way he does it, but it comes off as kind of like just, yeah, like lazy

careless. Like, sometimes just flicking the puck into spaces where it's very clearly and easily picked off and you're like, what, why did he do that? And it was so unnecessary. And obviously, the good outweighs the bad with him, but he clearly has some warts in his game. I had him, I had him ninth on my list, so I'm right there with you. And, you know, in the past, I would cite stuff like his ridiculous shot generation numbers as a positive. And, you know, individually, that's great for him. But I, I've really come around on the idea that, like, I, don't want my defensemen shooting the puck a lot unless they are, you know, I've even seen it with Dougie Hamilton this year where he's just generating a ton of shots

and none of them are going in. It's really tough to score goals from that distance. And I feel like it's not, I mean, a lot can happen with rebounds and deflections and, you know, the goalie just missing the puck. So it's never a terrible idea to fire the buck on that. But I do view it as sometimes it can be kind of an unnecessary loss of possession. And I think sometimes we can overrate defensemen who get a lot of shots on goal. And with him, his numbers have been so shocking in the past couple years, and he's been relied upon to do so much of that for that team. But I, I'm not digging, dinging him for it, but it used to be a massive, you know, in the positive column for me for defensemen. And now I've really changed my tune on that. Yeah, I'm with you there.

The shot generation numbers, at a certain point, it becomes like a bit of a, I don't want to say a bad thing because getting a shot on net is always worth it, not just for the chances of scoring on that particular shot, but, you know, like you said, generating rebounds and possibly deflections and, you know, increasing offensive zone pressure, getting the puck closer to the net, you know, at least, or generating an offensive zone faceoff where things can happen. But it's definitely a situation where you're relying on that far too much for my liking. I think the sharks would be a better team if Burns passed a little bit more. But yeah, and I'll be a little bit more charitable as well on his turnovers. I think that he's just

really, really aggressive and constantly trying to make things happen. And it's like his one focus in life is getting the puck to the net, to the opponent's net. And sometimes he just like thinks too far ahead. You know, like he's trying to play 3D chess when he needs to keep it a little bit simpler as much as, you know, I usually crap on people who try to keep the game simple. He needs to simplify his game a little bit to be at his best. Yeah, no, I agree with that. I actually had, I know you got into this with people when you posted your written list and he wasn't on your top 20. I actually do have Mark, Mark, Mark, Lord Vlasic in the teens for me in the back half of the, you know, 15 to 20 range. But he's obviously a super polarizing or tricky player to evaluate here just

because his numbers obviously aren't great by any means, but some of his usage and sort of what he's freed up, a guy like Ben Burns to do in the past, is worth noting, in my opinion. And I think one of the craziest stats going in the league right now is I believe it's been like 100 plus games since Mark Evervlasik took a penalty, which considering who he plays against

and the fact that he's not like, you know, one of those guys who you're like, oh, well, part of that is because he's playing mad at our defense and he's just, you know, letting guys go by him. Like, he plays physical and he gets in people's space and he plays against the other team's best guys. I mean, he's, like, whatever they play, the Edmondton Oilers, he's glued to, or as much as glued to Connor McDavid's hip as any human being can be. And the fact that he, other than delay of game penalties, that he hasn't taken any, you know,

tripping or hooking or interference or any sort of obstruction calls is just mind-blowing to me. And I hope that's a streak that just continues forever because it's, it's crazy. Yeah, I have a lot of respect for guys who are very aggressive defenders and don't take a lot of penalties. I think that's something that I mentioned a couple times in the Winger's podcast about guys like Mark Stone. Yeah. You know, the more you entangle yourself with opposing players, the more likely you are. Just to even not necessarily be undisciplined, but just take an accidental penalty.

You know, like you're poking for a puck and you get it between a guy's skates and they do the old hit the back skate on the stick and fall over. It happens. So the way, the fact that Vlasic has kept those penalties down is really impressive. The reason why he doesn't make it for me is he's kind of a one-dimensional defenseman at this point. And I think I like him a lot and I think that he is, you know, a top defenseman in the league in terms of like, you know, he's in my top 60 kind of thing. He's a top, or I guess top 62 now with Vegas in the league. So he's a top pairing defenseman.

but to be in this top-top range where you're among the league's elite, I think you need to be a better transition player than Velasic is or a better offensive player where he really only dominates in the defensive end. And I think you have to give him credit for freeing up Burns for sure. But at a certain point, even if you're playing the toughest competition in the league, which I think Velasic does play, if not the toughest minutes, like top five toughest minutes overall by the calculations that I did, you can't get totally caved in.

Yeah. You know, like if you're a great, great defenseman, even in the toughest of minutes, I want to see you be close to even. You know what I mean? If you're going to be in the top 20. And it's kind of the same thing with Nick Jalmersen where like he has a great defensive impact,

but outside of that, he doesn't do enough for it to be a top defenseman for me. The good news for you is I believe this year with Blasick and Carlson on the ice, the sharks are controlling like 65% of the shot of death or something. Yeah, so he'll probably move fair enough. Okay, let's keep going here. So let's hammer out some of these reigning names. All right.

So we'll do another group here. I've got... Well, let's just do them all. Okay. Because you have like seven names left or something, right? Yeah, for sure. So at number seven, I've got Jones. Six is Klingberg.

Five is Hedman. Four, Giordano. Three, Suban, two, Doughty, and one, Carlson. So I had, I had the same top three. I had Carlson, Suban, Dowdy, one, two, three. I had Seth Jones at four. I'm really high on Seth Jones. We can talk, but I mean, we've talked about him and Wrenzki quite a bit so far.

But then I had headman, Klingberg, and then I had the Hampus Linholm, Jacob. Slavin back to back. And Mark Sheridan, as you mentioned, was in the back half of my top 10. But yeah, so we're pretty much on the same page there. I don't know, which of the names that we mentioned there are most interesting to you. I think, you know, I moved up headman a lot on this list than I had on my actual database list. Yeah, he was on your teens, I believe, right? Yeah, because he won the Norris last year, but he did not have a good season. I know it's a controversial take, but outside of the power play where he was great with Kutrov and Stamcoast, 5-on-5, he was not very good. He had career lows in a lot of different categories.

He's an aggressive defender, but he got caught a lot last year. I just, he's his Norris win of the ones that have been awarded for being due. I think was probably the worst. I would have been more happy with Headman winning Norris any of the last three years before last year, compared to last year. I just,

I don't know what got into voters last year outside of looking at points and power play numbers because headman just, he's struggled last year in a lot of ways that he doesn't usually. Now, I don't think that's something that's bound to continue. I think he just had an off year and killed it on the power play,

but he, was not impressive to me last year at all. Yeah, I guess the one nuance or counterpoint that I'd make, and I'm not sure how much of an excuse this is because when you're talking about the Norris Trophy and top five defensemen of the world, like in theory you should be able to lift

anyone you play with, but he did play in an order amount of time with Dan Girardi last year, which I feel like needs to be mentioned in the case, but you're right. I mean, it was based on his lofty standards, a bit of a step down. I think people just wanted to reward the lightning for the ridiculous season they had. And, you know, he put up a ton of points and he's had

a great career to date and missed out on this award in the past. So I don't have like too much issue with it. He wasn't my number one choice by any means. But I think like he's a, he's obviously a great player. And I'm not sure how much of that was Gerardy and how much of that. It was just weird and inexplicable one year's struggles. And I'm sure he's not on the other end of it. Like he's going to be continued being up there in that conversation. The one thing I do enjoy, watching about him most and he does so much well but I feel like he's he's my favorite player to watch in in transition plays when he doesn't have the puck

like I feel like he has such a great sense for being the the trailer on plays and jumping into it in the right time and that's just like a random anecdote and observation there's no analytical basis to it by any means but just in terms of like when that lightning team gets going in transition and when he's jumping in on the play and being like you know it's a three on two and he makes it a four on two or something like that and he gets in there like he's just my favorite defenseman to watch in that regard so um i have a soft spot for headman and i he was yeah i guess he was fifth on my list so um i was a bit surprised when you did your written up you know you did your written portion that he was in the teens but i'm glad to see that he's uh he's bounced back a little bit here on your list yeah i mean it's the difference between going strictly by data and adhering to the formula or whatever you want to call it like the outline that I've created and, you know, my actual personal view of the player.

Like, I don't think last year was indicative at all of Headman's career arc or actual performance. But, yeah, like you said, it's tough to play with Dan Girardi, but at the same time, I know, like, P.K. Suban played most of the year with Alexi Emelin. You know, like, there are guys that have to carry the crappy player around a lot. Eric Carlson, you know, his whole career. True doubt he gets a lot of Derek Foreboard. Yeah, true. I think Forbord's a little bit better than Gerardy, though.

Yeah, he is, but I mean, I can't imagine that Derek Forbord would go to another team and all of a sudden start carrying his own pairing. No, that's true. Although at the same time, you know, I thought the same thing of Mcnapp. He actually did pretty well in Vegas. So, you know, maybe there's a little bit of good home cooking in L.A. better than we think. But, yeah, I don't know. I think Hedman will be better this year.

But yeah, Dan Girardi is definitely the worst of those players that we've talked about having to carry. He's just, as bad as he was in New York, he's now even older and even slower. And I just don't get how they went that route the whole season. I get that, you know, like, Mikhail Sergachev is a very big defensive risk and you're nervous about putting him up in the minutes with headman. But I just cannot imagine it being worse to have Sergachev with head. Edmund than Gerardi. I just can't, I don't believe that it's possible that he would be worse. You know what I mean?

I think it would have been a much more exciting and interesting pairing to try that out. I agree. I don't know. I mean, some of these names are pretty straightforward. We already kind of touched on them. Is there anyone? I mean, you obviously didn't have Slavin as high as I did. Yeah.

But, I mean, I don't know what. else there is to say at this point in terms of like I just I think he's a tremendous play I think that you know with guys like him and Hampus Lindholm maybe I'm overrating a little bit about I'm not sure but I feel like it's really really tough to actually be good at defending in your own zone like I feel like guys that spend a lot of time in a defensive zone and don't have the puck it's you're generally kind of chasing the play and you're taking a ton of penalties and it's obviously not a very advisable, sustainable, long-term approach to defending. And with Slavin, like, he's just, he's so smooth and it seems like he never makes mistakes and I just, I don't know, I think he's

so effective and I'm not sure if the points will ever be there to get him in the Norris Trophy discussion. But he is kind of becoming similarly with Mattis-Sach-holm, like people now are like Jacob Slavit, whenever they talk about the hurricanes, like Jacob Slavin is the best defenseman no one's talking about it. It's like everyone's talking about Jacob Slavin. He's awesome. Yeah, I feel like Slavin is well known enough now that I'm like, the best defenseman nobody's talking about is Brett Pesci. Yeah. You know, like both of them are extraordinarily good without the puck. And I think that's something that, which is really tough to do. Traditionally has been valued, but is very hard to quantify for most people and has kind of been underrated the last

couple of years. So those are guys that, you know, like Hampas Linholm, they're starting to stick out. And what I'll say about Hampas Linholm, one reason why, you know, he always ranks up here despite the low point totals is he's probably the best neutral zone to vendor in the NHL. Oh, yeah. You just can't get a controlled entry against them very easily. It takes the most talented players to break through that. And, you know, maybe I haven't checked the data on this year yet. It might not be as true this year because the ducks are so porous, but yeah, he's just fantastic at his own blue line. He's great inside the zone as well, but I think his biggest standout defensive quality is just that, like, you can't get an entry against him. It's really tough to do. And, you know,

the top three players in the league in that category are him, Suban, and Dowdy, which, you know, it tells you that that's something that you should value, I think. Whenever you, you always give like a bit of a sniff test to a statistic and like some of it can be confirmation bias, obviously, but if you have a statistic where the guys that you expect to be excellent are excellent at it, I think that's usually a good indication that it's a decent statistic. It's one of the things that led me to value like loose puck recoveries and past blocks where it's like, oh, if you look at forwards for the last three years, who are the guys that consistently lead there?

And it's like, oh, it's Patrice Bergeron, Patrice Bergeron, and Patrice Bergeron. Well, I guess that's indicative. It's a good statistic, yeah. Yeah. Yeah. Yeah, I'm glad you mentioned that. That second round series between the ducks and the oilers last year, or two years ago, was my favorite thing to watch from it was that one-on-one battle with Linholm and McDavid.

And, you know, McDavid, obviously, like, against anyone else is going to get the better of that matchup more times than not. But there were certain instances where McDavid would be coming through the neutral zone, and it would just be one-on-one-and-and-lid and Lindholm would be on an island by himself. And he would, like, corral McDavid and either get the puck from him or push him into, you know, a less dangerous space on the ice up against the boards. And I would just marvel at the fact that he was able to do that without taking the penalties and just the combination of the footwork and the stick work is, in my opinion, the best in the game.

And yeah, that's sort of the nerdy stuff that I love to watch. And Lynn Holm does that as well as anyone. So I think at this point, people listen to the show won't be surprised about the fact that we had him this high and sort of the discourse about him generally on hockey Twitter. but yeah he's like he's never going to be like a 50-60 point guy by any means but he's constantly going to be in this discussion for top-thin defensemen for a long time to come yeah i totally agree um all right let's uh let's get out of here we're at like the 90-minute mark and i feel like

um we've pretty much hit all the points i feel like we wanted to hit on all the players is there anything else we left out uh i don't think so i don't think people need to need us to tell them that you know drew dowdy and eric carlson pk suban are great yeah i mean those that's been the top three for the past couple years, I feel like, right? I haven't seen anything that's caused us to change that belief. No, no, not at all. Do you think, uh, do you think Seth Jones has the best, um, the best likelihood of potentially cracking that list or changing that, uh, pecking order in the, in the years to come? Or like, do you think someone else, uh, from this next generation has, a more likely upside, I guess, of achieving that goal? I think it'll be Jones or Klingberg.

I can see Klingberg clawing his way in there. I feel like he did last year, but never got the Norris nomination that he probably should have. Like last year, two of the three players who were nominated for the Norris were outside my top three. I didn't have Suban in there either. I think I had him number five. So, Klingberg would have been nominated for me. Doubtie would have won. And I forget who else was in there, but I think Jones was like number four.

So, like, those two guys are right there. They're knocking on the door. Like, it could be as soon as this year. that they're in that conversation at the very least, you know? So maybe it's time that that tier, that top tier of players gets broken up a little bit or added to. I'm excited to see that because you're right that it has been, I don't want to say stagnant because it just means that those players are consistently excellent. But nobody's, you know, broken in there. I feel like Giorado was in that conversation, but is now probably a little bit further down just due to age.

headman's in that conversation, but maybe just a tiny bit below the threshold there. But yeah, I'm really excited to see what could happen with the young defenseman like Jones. I guess Klingberg's not that young, but he's youngish. He's young in terms of NHL years, in terms of how long he's been in the week, for sure. All right, Andrew, this was a blast, man. I'm glad we finally got to use defensemen.

People can follow you on Twitter at Andrew Berkshire and check out all your work. and man, yeah, we finally did it. I'm going to try to do goalies at some point down the road here, but we've done all the skating positions at least so far, and I'm pretty happy with our lists. And I look forward to having you back on the show sometime down the road. I feel like we're going to need to do a Montreal Canadiens deep dive or something because they're certainly warranting our attention with their play early on the season.

Yeah, no kidding. It's been a little bit unexpected, but fun at LeVarie. They're playing good hockey, which is strange. based on the last few years. Like fun hockey too, yeah, they'll climb up your watchability rankings. Yeah, that game against Washington was quite a sight to behold. All right, man.

Have a good one, and we'll chat soon. Absolutely. Talk you soon. Cheers. The hockey P.D.Ocast with Dimpilipovic. Follow on Twitter at Dim Philipovich and on SoundCloud at soundcloud.com slash hockeypedocast.