Moving this to this topic, a better fit.
I've been humming and hawing on this for weeks. The second you try and dissect Hamilton it looks like you're trying to bring him down to justify a trade - which never looks great.
I saw that comparison as well. In fact I approached the author to discuss his counting methods on the defensive side of the puck. Was that an on ice event? Or an individual event? I was expecting it to be on ice, but he did in fact count events that involved the individual.
What does it say?
Hamilton is an elite pucks to the net defenseman, something that makes it all the more criminal that he had to watch the #1 powerplay unit for up to three months last season. No idea how that happened or could happen. He gets pucks to the net. This does two things ... 1) it creates offence because he's getting it through that first wall of defense consistently which takes talent and 2) plays a huge active role in creating his own positive corsi numbers and for that of his linemates.
His assists were down from his shot attempts this season, which I'm not sure you can hang on him. That could say he was upping the number of muffins that got into the slot which didn't create rebounds or scoring chances. Or it could say he was victim of the Flame's collectively terrible shooting percentage that went on all season. Probably a bit of both.
The rest? Above average but not elite. His entry and exit stats are more second pairing by the looks of it, and overall his shot attempts seem to push him further up the list when it comes to analytics than his play perhaps would dictate; all of that prefaced on the counting stats of another that I certainly can't validate in any way.
The eye test? I think we all see why his counting stats are high because he shoots all the time. As I said above this is an elite skill and it's effective as hell at creating offence, but it's also a very good way to get your corsi stats up through the roof. But other than that I honestly can't say I ever viewed Hamilton as a shut down guy, a crease clearer, or an end to end rusher. Many of the other roles of a defenseman he wasn't all that noticeable as dominant.
Noah Hanifin
Gets more interesting when you see Hamilton's 17/18 season against Noah Hanifin.
This isn't an eye test for me, I haven't seen Hanifin enough.
But simple data suggests last season, Hanifin was inferior to Hamilton in shot metrics, though said inferiority is actually stronger in counts than the percentiles for the rest of Hamilton's game so it's not like he was weak.
Hanifin is elite or approaching elite on controlled entries and exits ... the guy can keep the puck and just skate by people which is a pretty exciting 200 foot add to a team that is looking to play with more speed.
Defensively he's not dynamo, which is expected at his age, but he doesn't give up lot in comparison to Hamilton on the same measures.
Finally ... why did Hamilton take a step back last season, your original question. Seems to me the best way to maybe not answer that question, but at least bring relevant data into the discussion is a similar year over year look at Giordano. If his numbers eroded the same way it could be a change in style, or the pairing suffering together.
Mark Giordano
Same up tick in shot attempts. Improvement or stays the same in other categories.
So yeah I think you could suggest that Hamilton pushed the envelope somewhat offensively last season.
Either way interesting thing to look at, and it's added a little more excitement to Hanifin as well.