Hockey Analytics has always seemed to have a tough time adequately quantifying defenceman performance.
Oilers fans have been in on it from the start, and a few of the earlier pioneers now work in analytics for teams like the Capitals and Devils.
We saw statements like Marc-Andre Bergeron was better than Matt Greene.
Martin Marincin was going to be sorely missed.
Jeff Petry was a great defender and it would be dumb to trade him.
Matt Benning was better than Darnell Nurse.
Now they were right about Petry, but they got a lot of other stuff very wrong. I didn't see any better predictive power when it comes to defencemen than random fans giving their opinions.
Dellow wrote a bit on why he thought the analytics might be boosting d-men that were actually subpar. He observed through watching game tape that some coaches would throw their bottom pairing d-men over the boards against elite opposition when the puck was going towards the opponents end of the ice, and it was later in the shifts for the enemy elites.
So now these bottom pairing defenders boosted their TOI against elites and also their corsi numbers through no ability of their own. They just jumped over the boards and benefited from the coaches' usage.
I think these JFresh cards are neat and interesting, but I personally wouldn't trust it over the opinion of a fellow hockey enjoyer that I trust.
P.S. The Nurse contract is gross, but it also seems to be the new norm for D-men. I believe that D-men in general were underpaid relative to forwards up until the last 3-4 seasons and this is part of a natural swing to bring top pairing defencemen in line with top line forwards. Also it seems Canadian teams pay something of a premium on every contract these days.
Given Nurse's natural athleticism, work ethic, and the probable soaring inflation coming down the pipe I think this contract will end up looking palatable over time, but who really knows. My investment account tells me I'm not that great at predicting the future.....
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