Quote:
Originally Posted by Cali Flames Fan
That Florida team was abysmal a year ago, especially defensively, and they turned into one of the best in the league in that regard with Ekblad, Luongo, and Gallant coaching.
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Certainly was impressive how quickly the Panthers turned around their defensive woes. Last season they were at the very bottom of the barrel with only the Oilers letting in more goals. This year they were exactly average. It's a pretty drastic change which has to be, in large part, attributed to the new defenseman on the team. Of course that being Willie Mitchell.
Ekblad was sheltered. He started over 60% of his shifts in the offensive zone. Of defensemen to play over 60 GP that year only Dan Boyle and Justin Schultz started more in the offensive zone. Willie Mitchell only started 40% of his shifts in the offensive zone.
Aaron Ekblad also saw the weakest quality of competition of any regular defenseman on his team while Willie Mitchell saw the hardest. If you watched him this year it wouldn't take any special thinking to see that this stat held up. It was Mitchell and Kulikov who saw the tough minutes always matched against the top lines, Ekblad got about the easiest minutes you can give a top 4 defensemen and he did it with a very solid veteran on his opposite side.
If you want to talk about the turn around the Panthers had defensively and point to a defenseman, it's the defenseman who night in and night out went against the top lines, the defenseman who played over 3 minutes a night on the penalty kill. Not the rookie defensemen who played sheltered minutes.