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A while ago, I wrote on offensive types for NHL centres and wingers (here and here). I used assists and goals per 60 minutes of ice time over the past three seasons for centres/wingers with more than 2500 minutes. The minutes-played threshold reduced the groups to ~65 players, isolating out the top players in minutes at the positions since 2012.

The graphs produced quadrants and helped give a little context for traditional descriptors like “playmaker,” “goal scorer,” “all around,” and “bottom six.” For centres, Nazem Kadri and Ryan O’Reilly showed their worth as top-tier, all-around talents. For wings, David Backes is revealed to be a playmaker and Taylor Hall’s claim as the game’s premier left wing is supported.

While those measures openly omitted a myriad other factors that help us understand players (puck possession, team role, personality, even injuries, etc) the lens provided some useful insights for forwards relative to their peers in terms of regularly observed offensive output.

The challenge here is to replicate a similar view for defensemen. And it really is a challenge. First, I’ll say a couple of words about how I made these graphs. Then, I’ll talk about how we can understand how regular NHL defensemen have performed since 2012.

Methodology

"@theScore: There was a method to the madness behind classic spastic Dominik Hasek. http://t.co/Pr441ntyTs pic.twitter.com/NNC37J56xS" @B1G_B34R — Byron (@Boosinicka) January 13, 2015

Each graph below contains data drawn from war-on-ice.com. The cohort examined is the group of defensemen who have played more than 1100 minutes at even strength since 2012 – a group of 217 skaters. The cutoff is admittedly arbitrary and is meant to reduce the group to a manageable number of regulars over the past three seasons. In each graph, the average for the pair of measure is marked by a reference line, creating four quadrants to help label past performance.

Each measure is purely descriptive, past-focused, and used as a means for understanding where players have been and how they might be labelled. I’ll have a little more to say with each graph as we go.

Fenwick For/Against

Fenwick (unblocked shot attempts) has long been known as a better correlate with winning than other advanced stats. In that spirit of identifying defensemen who contribute most to team winning percentage through their shot attempt creation and suppression, we’ll begin with Fenwick here.

Below you’ll find defensemen plotted based on the Fenwick against per 60 minutes versus their Fenwick for per 60.

Though their plots aren’t marked, Matt Carle, Roman Josi and Brian Campbell are the points closest to average–just under 40 Fenwick against per 60 and just over 41 Fenwick for per 60 over the past three years. Defenders in the top-right have played at an “elite” level, limiting unblocked shot attempts against and generating unblocked attempts for their team. This group includes some of the game’s obvious elite–P.K. Subban, Duncan Keith and Drew Doughty.

This group also confirms the value of fancy stats darling like Johnny Boychuk, Nick Leddy and Jake Muzzin.

Sounds about right.

On the other hand, noted defensive deadweights like Dion Phaneuf, Mike Weber, and Andrew Ference pop up in the “overwhelmed” quadrant, surrendering many attempts against and generating few in their favour.

What new insights can be gleaned from this view?

Three defenders playing their first full season with new teams (Andrej Sekera, Kevin Bieksa, and Keith Yandle) rank among the top of the “high event” players, showing a past tendency to create/surrender more unblocked shot attempts than virtually all other regular defenders. Whether or not their maintain their three-year rates will suggest something about their individual styles versus the impact of team systems/coaching on shot attempts.

Scoring Chances For/Against

Extending beyond shot attempts, the following chart presents defensemen plotted by their ability to generate scoring chances for versus their tendency to allow scoring chances against.

Hanging around the point where the averages of scoring chances for and against intersect are three fairly different types of blueliners–Jason Garrison, Ryan McDonagh and Mark Giordano. They have averaged around 26ish scoring chances for per 60 and 26 scoring chances against per 60.

Again, we find a number of defensemen exactly where we would expect. Stars like Muzzin, Keith, and Doughty are nestled into the elite category, while Weber, Phaneuf and Ference are mired in the depths of the “overwhelmed” quad.

But a number of interesting blueliners pop out on this graph, riding excellent scoring chance suppression into the elite category. Marc Methot, Marc Staal, Barret Jackman, and Marc-Edouard Vlasic are all plotted in the elite category, based largely on their association with very low scoring chances against per 60 rates. Alex Goligoski also just hangs on inside the elite group, showing his hidden value as a top-notch scoring chance creator and preventer over the past three years.

The graph above plots scoring chances for and against per 60 again with a games requirement instead of TOI requirement, which adds some additional defenders into the mix. I add this only to shine a light on the fact that defense partners/teammates may stick together–Doughty and Muzzin, Vlasic and Boyle, Klingberg and Goligoski, Johnson and Hejda plot near to each other. And every poor defensemen to skate for the Sabres over the past three years can be found in the “Bad” quad. No surprise there.

Usage vs. Production

Finally, drawing some inspiration from Rob Vollman’s player usage charts, we’ll take a look at defensemen points per 60 compared with their usage. Before going any further here, it’s important to note here that Micah Blake McCurdy has demonstrated that more than half of all shifts being “on-the-fly.” This means that, when we look at deployment (which is based on shifts that start with a faceoff), we’re only really looking at half of the picture. Most shifts start on the fly and these aren’t captured by zone start data.

We move on with this chart while keeping that in mind.

Each grid here represents a distinct scenario: high scoring with tough deployment (more defensive zones start, making offensive production extra impressive), high scoring with soft deployment (lots of points, lots of offensive zone starts), low scoring with tough deployment, and low scoring with soft deployment (the worst category).

Giordano, Shea Weber and Dustin Byfuglien impress with great points per 60 rates despite heavy defensive zone starts relative to their teammates. However, young Dallas Stars’ defensemen John Kilingberg is a big surprise in this group, posting one of the 5v5 points per 60 rates while ranking among those defensemen with more-than-average defensive zone starts.

In the top scoring defensemen with easier zone starts, Aaron Ekblad appears alongside Torey Krug. In both cases, these developing defenders were clearly protected by their coaches in order to take advantage of their ready-made offense without risking over-use in tough situations.

In the low-scoring, soft deployment quad are defensemen who’ve made small offensive contributions (in terms of standard counting stats) despite receiving extra offensive opportunities. New Leafs defender Matt Hunwick highlights the group, while Brian Campbell and Dan Boyle also appears here. Names like Campbell and Boyle highlight that defenders can contribute much to the offensive game (breakout passes, puck movement through the neutral zone, etc…) that doesn’t appear on the traditional box score. Though the pair are coming to the end of their careers, both Campbell and Boyle still serve in important offensive roles for their teams (just ask Ekblad about Campbell).

Some Conclusions

Top 20 defensemen for the 2015-16 NHL season #nhl http://t.co/5ud4gVZqHq pic.twitter.com/AW7o7GyHEN — NHL by WordLink (@NHLbyWordLink) October 6, 2015

A number of defensemen show up in the best parts of the graph over and over – combining strong Fenwick differentials, good scoring chance management, and strong traditional stats contributions. Subban, Keith, Hedman, Karlsson, and Doughty feature as top-notch NHL defenders across measures. Muzzin, Stralman, Leddy, Boychuk and Vlasic deserve to be counted as top-flight NHL blue liners also as they repeatedly pop up in the elite quadrants.

At the other end of the spectrum, a predictable cast of defenders routinely appear in the “bad” and “overwhelmed” quadrants–Tyler Myers, Dion Phaneuf, Andrew Ference, and Andrew MacDonald are consistently featured in the poor sections of the graphs above. Playing defense for the Sabres, Leafs and Oilers (or just being Andrew MacDonald) can have that effect, though each player has struggled in their own ways as well.

Interestingly, Calgary Flames blueliners Dennis Wideman and Kris Russell tend to appear in the worst sections of the graphs, suggesting that last year’s performance was more outlier than true performance level. Russell is young enough to imagine that some development is part of his success story last year.

In the end, while these measures don’t offer projections for performance this year, some proper quantifications and labels for defensemen performance over the past three years do help to better understand what we’ve seen with our eyes.

Especially the whole Andrew MacDonald is bad thing. Yikes.