Second Thoughts: D-men Highlight Hobey Hopefuls at the Break

by Ryan Lambert/Columnist (@twolinepass)

It's probably been said a million times by now but this really is the year of the defenseman.

It's rare that blueliners win the Hobey, of course. The last to do it was Will Butcher two years ago, but before that there hadn't even been one in the Hobey Hat Trick since Matt Gilroy won in 2009.

Which is to say that unless there's a defender who is a clear standout, he's probably not going to get the kind of consideration even “Ah, yeah I guess he's having a good year” forwards do. In fact, dating back to the Gilroy season, in which he and Jamie McBain were both in the top 10, only 14 defensemen made that cut.

And one year (2012) had four of them, but none of course made the hat trick, and one was the annual “Don't forget we gotta put an Atlantic Hockey guy in there” nomination. The following season, there were no defensemen in the top 10.

That isn't likely to be the case this season.

There are, for my money, four defensemen who have a legitimate shot at the award right now. It's for a very simple reason: Will Butcher won scoring just 0.88 a night, but had a reputation for being the best player on the best team. Matt Gilroy scored 0.82 his Hobey year.

These four guys are all scoring at least 1.18 points per game so far this season: Adam Fox (Harvard), Chase Priskie (Quinnipiac), Cale Makar (UMass), and Quinn Hughes (Michigan).

(You might also throw in Scott Perunovich of Minnesota-Duluth because he has that Best Player On The Best Team argument like Butcher did. But in a year with this many high-scoring defenders, I'm not sure he stacks up.)

Fox's case is obvious enough: He's the national points-per-game leader right now and is a full point clear of what Gilroy did (20 in 11, good for 1.82 a night). He's only one point back of Priskie, who has six extra games played. One expects he won't keep it up to this extent, but if he gets to the end of the season with like 40 points in 32 games — and he'd only need 20 in his next 22 — I don't know how he's not up for the Hat Trick at least.

Priskie's case is interesting because he's tied for third in the nation in goals, but also on a really good team. Is he going to score on 1 in every 6 shots from the blue line all year? No. But if you can bank that many goals, well, only seven defensemen since 2012-13 have scored more goals in a full season than he has right this second. He's more of a darkhorse candidate but you have to think about him hard right now. Plus he shoots the puck a ton, so even if the percentage goes down, the production will probably still be solid.

Makar is also going to get a lot of “Best Player On The Best Team” consideration if UMass keeps this up — which it most likely will not — but he really is phenomenal. He's not putting up points like Fox (one fewer in five more games) and he's certainly not scoring like Priskie, but he can and should get a lot of consideration.

As for Hughes, well, he's scoring about as much as Makar on a much worse team (record-wise), but I think everyone also recognizes that he's an elite talent who's NHL-ready. However, 11 of his 17 assists are secondaries, which leads the nation and is not necessarily reliable long-term.

(The bigger knock on Hughes, by the way, is that he's gotten a point on every Wolverines goal he's been on the ice for, but has also been on the ice for the second-most goals against in the country at 25. Probably not his fault that his on-ice save percentage is in the toilet, but voters probably will hold that against him.)

As for the forwards, At the start of winter break, there were nine forwards scoring 1.35 points per game, which is the approximate historical cut-off for legitimate Hobey consideration. About the same as last year.

They are: Evan Barratt and Alex Limoges (Penn State), Taro Hirose (Michigan State), Ryan Kuffner and Max Veronneau (Princeton), Odeen Tufto (Quinnipiac), Dylan McLaughlin (Canisius), Casey Dornbach (Harvard), and Joe Snively (Yale).

You'll note that a good chunk of those guys are in the Ivy League, and have therefore played as many as seven games fewer than other guys on this list. You'll also notice that Snively in particular is usually a pretty good player (almost always above a point a game) but never an elite one. He's benefiting a lot from shooting percentages right now. Dornbach, meanwhile, has just two goals in 11 games and is only a freshman, both of which will likely keep him out of voters' minds.

So that gives you linemates Barratt and Limoges — who would probably split votes if ballots were due today — as well as Hirose, Tufto, McLaughlin, and the Princeton boys. The latter get an Ivies pass, I think, because they were elite scorers last year and got screwed out of being Hobey finalists.

Barratt needs to shoot more if he wants to keep this up, because he's only got 47 shots (lowest among all forwards in this group save Dornbach and Snively) but the most goals. Limoges isn't even doing as much heavy lifting in that regard as you might think; they have 47 and 50 shots. Not a recipe for long-term scoring success.

Hirose also only has 50 shots, but is scoring at a much more sustainable rate (14 percent, versus nearly 28 for Barratt and 20 for Limoges). He also leads the nation in primary assists, which is something I think is a lot more indicative of quality than overall assists.

For the same reason, Verroneau looks like a good long-term Hobey candidate for me. He leads the nation in percentage of his assists being primaries: he's 13 of 14 and based on their histories, his linemates are likely to scoring like this all year, meaning he'll always get his share of helpers.

The following is just what everyone looks like in terms of points production right now, and you can see Fox and Barratt seem to be running away with it:

(Asterisks, if you can't tell, denote defensemen)

While it is the Year of the Defenseman, I think right now there's a clear No. 1 and three other guys way more grouped together. That group is probably led by Priskie, both due to his goal total (the record for a defenseman since 2012-13 is just 15; he's three away in mid-December) and his better ratio of primary to secondary assists.

And if you're going for forwards, it looks like Barratt and Kuffner will be there unless Hirose can start shooting more, which is theoretically possible. But as you can see here, he would really have to start shooting more:

Kuffner's scoring is significantly more sustainable than just about anyone's in the group. He shoots more than everyone and scores at a lower rate, meaning his nice little rate of 10 in 13 looks like it's set up to last.

So if I'm putting together a Hobey Hat Trick right now, I'm probably going with Fox, Barratt and Priskie because I need a little more proof of concept for the Ivy guys, even the Princeton ones.

But if I'm projecting to the end of the season, right now I think the Hobey Hat Trick would be Fox, Kuffner and Hirose.

Ryan Lambert is a Yahoo! Sports columnist and the ONLY HOST of the NCAA hockey podcast "Hockey Goes to College" (the other guy is only his sidekick). His email is here and his Twitter is here.