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Originally Posted by Flames Draft Watcher
I find analytics tend to underrate defensive defensemen in general.
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No, analytics rates players with poor gap control, poor cycle stopping, inability to pinch and keep play alive in o zone, or poor breakout ability... poorly.
It just so happens that better defensemen tend to also have offensive skills, like Giordano was one of if not the best defensive defenseman in the league last year but also threw up some points.
Defensive defensemen who can maintain a suffocating gap and still break the puck out - Tanev, Hjalmarsson, Ekholm, Gudas, Manson, Lindholm, Slavvin, are not underrated by analytics.
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Almost none of them have good possession numbers and yet NHL GM's love what they do. There's a bit of a disconnect between the stats and the value of strong, physical, defensive defensemen. So much of what they bring isn't really quantified in the stats very well.
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The disconnect isn't between the stats and the players' on ice value... The disconnect is between the elements being overvalued (glass-and-out mistake-free clears, shot blocking, getting bailed out by your excellent goalie, sealing guys against the wall once every ten shifts while missing your check the other five shifts and collapsing to the net in desperation, etc) and the elements that actually predictably drive positive goal differentials. The reason for this is aesthetics, certain guys pass the aesthetics test and get described as defensive defensemen because of it, even as they bleed shots/chances/goals relative to guys not passing the aesthetics test.