One of the most common questions I got from hockey fans and even non-hockey fans this past summer was whether or not defenceman Evan Bouchard is worth his new four-year, $42 million contract.

It’s obviously a significant sum of money for a player who has often been picked on for his defensive lapses. But there’s also enough evidence to indicate that he’s a solid contributor to the team, and not just with the points he’s consistently put up. Whatever the case, Bouchard is going to serve as yet another good example of how defencemen are often evaluated incorrectly.

In this exercise, we’ll just focus on the player and try to answer a rather simple question: “Is this guy good?”

I’ve learned over the many years that I’ve been covering professional hockey is to try and lay out your criteria before answering open-ended questions like this. It makes it significantly easier as a writer to put together a (hopefully) influential piece. And it can help drive a discussion if people know where the original goal posts are.  “Good” means different things to different people. And the criteria will depend on the player’s role and can also be impacted by key contextual information like the team’s current state and where they are in their path to a championship.

When evaluating defencemen who are on heavier contracts like Bouchard, I have some pretty straight-forward criteria – all of which align with teams winning games.

What’s missing from here is actual point production. Regarding defencemen, a smart guy once said, “points aren’t offence”. To measure a defenceman’s offensive contributions, it’s better to look at the actions of the player that helped increase the team’s odds of outscoring opponents. And part of that can be captured by reviewing the team’s ability to control the flow of play and scoring chances, which is captured in the criteria above. Points are the by-product and can always be influenced by a team’s shooting percentage and save percentage, making it somewhat difficult to predict as it’s not a repeatable skill. If you’re paying for talent, always pay for their performance, not the results. Pardon the slight digression.

Evan Bouchard has gradually seen his minutes climb since entering the national league, now averaging 23.5 minutes (all situations) per game as a 25-year-old and establishing himself as a top pairing defenceman. He finished 25^th in the league in average ice time per game among defencemen in the 2024/25 regular season.

What’s most impressive has been the gradual increase in his proportion of even-strength minutes against the opposing team’s best players.

Based on PuckIQ’s data, Bouchard played just over 29 percent of his total even-strength minutes against elite-level competition last year and almost 32 percent the year before. That has him second on the team behind Matias Ekholm, with whom he regularly partnered on the top pairing, and among the other top pairing defencemen in the league. Bouchard has clearly gained the trust of the coaching staff and has taken these critical minutes away from other struggling players like Nurse, who has seen his share of minutes against elite players drop drastically over the last few years.

The added bonus to all of this is the fact that Bouchard’s on-ice numbers against elite players have been excellent. He posted an on-ice Corsi For percentage of 57 percent this past season against elite competition and 59 percent the season before. Not sure what else you can ask for from a defenceman when they’re helping control the flow of play and keeping the puck away from the opposing team’s best players.

What we’ve also seen from Bouchard, pretty much every year now, is that when he’s on the ice, the Oilers improve their ability to out-shoot and out-chance opponents. Last season, the Oilers posted an Expected Goal-share of 54.46 percent at even-strength, which was fourth best in the league. Without Bouchard on the ice, this number dropped to 52 percent. But with him, it jumped to about 58 percent. So relative to the team, Bouchard’s on-ice expected goals for percentage was a +5.79.

What’s especially impressive is that this has been the case since he started getting regular minutes, and it doesn’t appear to be slowing down. Whether it’s shot attempts, unblocked shot attempts, or scoring chances, the team sees their numbers consistently improve when he hits the ice.

Have to point out here as well that in those limited games early on his career in the 2018/19 season, Bouchard was showing glimpses of his potential impact. Definitely one of the many missed opportunities by the previous management regimes.

Now, the obvious rebuttal to these strong on-ice numbers posted by Bouchard is that he gets to play prime minutes with guys like McDavid and Draisaitl, who have their own magic fairy dust. But what’s impressive is that even when Bouchard doesn’t have one or both Glimmer Twins with him, the Oilers’ on-ice numbers are still better than 50 percent.

Last season, when Bouchard was on the ice with the depth forwards (so without McDavid or Draisaitl), the team posted a Corsi For percentage of 56 percent and an Expected Goals For percentage of 50 percent. When the depth players didn’t have Bouchard on the ice with them, these numbers fell below 48 percent. In previous seasons, these numbers were even worse. Bouchard is a big reason why the team has been able to outscore opponents when McDavid and/or Draisaitl are on the bench – an issue that plagued the team for years because of the incompetence of the front office and their inability to build an optimal roster.

While the cost to sign Bouchard was high, I would argue that it’s well worth it. He plays, and thrives, against elite opponents. The team consistently does better with him than without him when it comes to controlling the flow of play and scoring chances. And Bouchard has played a significant role in improving the team’s depth scoring.

Obviously, it would have been ideal to bring the cost of the contract down, but that would have required previous management regimes to identify his talents earlier on in his career and take on some risk. But that didn’t happen.

The good news is that Bouchard has a proven track record of being a positive influence on his team’s overall performance – helping drive offence on one end of the rink and keeping the puck away from the other end. He’s going to have his blunders that end up in the back of the net. But you have to remember the real, tangible impacts this player has on the team. And how difficult it would be to replace his exceptional attributes.

Bouchard is going to be a big part of the Oilers’ priming group that’s pushing for a Stanley Cup.

Data: PuckIQ, Natural Stat Trick