[Ashasx]

Without breaking down every paragraph in your post, I think we can narrow down the discussion to whether having a high count of shots blocked per minute of ice time is good or bad.

In any instance, you are correct that you cannot simply read a stat sheet from a game and read the blocked shots column to determine if one team has been better than the other, or if one specific player has been allowing too many opportunities against. It doesn't tell you anything about the shot quality, etc. That's fair.

Over a large sample size however, you can start to notice patterns and other indicators that start to appear. While one shot doesn't provide any useful information, 1000 do. And you can assume that the shot quality approaches a mean as the sample size gets larger.

So over time, if one player allows x shot opportunities against and another allows 1.1x, it's safe to assume that the player allowing 1.1x shot opportunities against is simply allowing more scoring opportunities total. That's not good.

So the question is, can you blame it entirely on Russell? Well, I think you can blame Hartley for a lot of the Flames woes last year, but on average, yes, you can blame Russell. He consistently allowed more shots against than any player on the Flames, regardless of who he played with, etc. All players allowed more shots against when Russell was on the ice. Again, if this was one or two games, the sample is meaningless. But we have parts of 3 seasons of data. N is large. The trend continued in Dallas.

I guess it comes down to what do you call a defenceman that consistently allows more shot opportunities against than any other player on the team while providing minimal offence, and makes his linemates worse? A defenceman that doesn't limit opportunities in any consistent way, without creating similar opportunities the other way?

I call that a bad defenceman. It's not a question of his character or work ethic.