You know what? If you look at the basic stats - hits, giveaways and takeaways, blocked shots, shots, team GF, team GA, these kinds of things, Hamonic kind of matches the eye test for me, a middle of the road top 4 defenseman, not too physical, doesn’t drive offense, does not really stand out in any way.
A few things that did pop out include that Gio is unique in the league in terms of doing everything, also in the ratio of giveaways vs takeaways. Only a handful of D with more takeaways than giveaways, which is to be expected.
Everyone knows Russell blocks more shots than anyone, but I suspect few people would expect that Russell hits more than Hamonic. Not a ton of takeaways, but he is more likely to effect the possession change by sacrificing the body and hoping a teammate jumps on it.
Brodie rarely hits, as we know, and was 15th in the league for D for takeaways. Frankly I think that is a reason he and Gio paired so well and where I think Dougie benefits from Gio when people talk about his possession driving stats.
If you look at the D with 40 takeaways or more, by the way, that is the top 25 D in the league, and frankly, a lot of these guys are very, very good players.
I don’t know. I think Gulutzan really screwed this team’s game up, they have strengths that were not leveraged, and they were a mess. The fundamentals are still there, and I think if Peters can coach effectively, team performance should return closer to its potential.
Fingers crossed, these guys’ games can return collectively to where they should be.
Out of the top 4, I see Hamonic as most tradable but would not mind seeing if Peters can coach his way out of their funk.
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