Quote:
Originally Posted by Mike F
Does anyone have advanced stats on Hamonic showing him to be a big liability?
The only regular stats I could find are that he's 3rd amongst defensemen in TOI/GP and is only -3, which is better than Hanifin and Andersson. For further comparison, Gustafsson is -2 and Forbort is -1 in the 6 games they've played with the Flames (where the team is 4-1-1 and +6 in GF/GA).
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Let's check it out. IMO defensive impact would be based on 5v5 on-ice fenwick against and 5v5 on-ice expected goals against. I usually look at both because
- to an extent defensemen control their ability to block shots
- expected goals is a good indicator of the shot quality / quantity you give up
- penalty kill numbers probably
should be considered, but it's a lot tougher to evaluate statistically as teams that get more saves on the PK usually have worse shot numbers and vice versa. Is the player allowing fewer shots because they're killing penalties better, or because they're just being scored on so easily that other teams don't need four or five whacks? Who knows? But let's operate on the base assumption that Hamonic's been an adequate PKer, and the primary issue people have with him is at even strength.
So based on this, let's look where Hamonic ranks. F
or fairness sake I haven't actually looked at these numbers yet, although I did come across a concerning xGF% number for his impact since the turn of the new year but that's not what I'm about to post. So any information I'm about to post will be news to me. It's possible my eye test is wrong but let's see:
On-Ice FA/60:
Hamonic has been shelled the second-most on the whole squad. While his icetime is obviously that of a top 4 guy and he can't be directly compared with a limited-use guy like Yelesin (nor do guys like that even have much of a sample size to really look at), there's reason to think that at the very least he hasn't been as good as the four other big minutes guys Brodie, Giordano, Andersson, and his own partner Hanifin. I guess he's been better than Stone defensively, though.
On-Ice xGA/60:
Kind of the same deal. A few guys shift around but the four at the bottom are pretty decisively tied to the previous table. In Davidson's defense he's had to play his off-side and I doubt that helped.
While for some offensive defensemen we would have to factor in things like playmaking, I don't think that's really something Hamonic brings.
In his role, it's safe to say Forbort's been awesome. The team plays some serious shutdown hockey with him on the ice. Gustafsson's obviously been a beneficiary of his partner, and he's not really there for his defense. I'm not necessarily opposed to trying Hamonic in a third pair role, but I'm not convinced he'd be an upgrade over the two guys we've got there, or even Kylington whose skating erases a lot of rush chances caused by our forwards' turnovers.