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Projecting Defencemen (Reveal)

By Jonathan Willis

Apr 14, 2016, 15:14 EDTUpdated:

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Yesterday, I put up five profiles of young defencemen, featuring scouting reports and statistical profiles. In a (somewhat failed) attempt to keep things anonymous, I made minor modifications to height and weight, projected totals over 82 games and offered a draft range rather than a specific number.

Then I asked readers to rank the defencemen.

Marc-Edouard Vlasic

As many of you guessed, Marc-Edouard Vlasic was Candidate A. In the comments section and on Twitter he finished in first place, and in the poll on the right he came in second. He played the toughest available competition on a good team at a very young age and I’d also note he was great on the penalty kill. sure enough, he’s evolved into an elite defensive defenceman.

Anderson’s primary calling card is hockey sense. He’s also an excellent skater, a combination which makes him naturally suited to a shutdown role. He could be more physical, though; he finishes his checks but doesn’t really play a mean game. He was a pretty big point producer in junior after being drafted, but so far hasn’t translated that to the NHL and may lack the creativity necessary to be a real force in that department, though he does make a good first pass.

Anderson mostly played with a quality veteran puck-moving defenceman [Christian Ehrhoff] this year.

Luke Schenn

Yes, Candidate B was in fact Luke Schenn, and this is a player who I thought was going to evolve into more than he ended up being. He was good on the penalty kill, which I generally see as a sign of a shutdown defender in the making, and his offence had started to come on a little. In retrospect, playing less-than-top minutes with Tomas Kaberle probably boosted his numbers.

Brown’s standout quality is his physical game. He hits to hurt, and there aren’t many players in his age group who deliver more nastiness in the crease; he’s been compared to Adam Oates. He’s a natural leader, plays a smart positional game and makes a capable first pass. He isn’t a big producer offensively but plays within his limitations in that regard.

Brown mostly played with a quality veteran puck-moving defenceman [Tomas Kaberle] this year.

Jack Johnson

Third in both the comments section and in polling was Jack Johnson, who was at one point touted as the second-best prospect in all of hockey by a panel of scouts assembled by The Hockey News. This was a guy who blew the doors off in terms of the eye test but always had miserable numbers. He’s still a controversial player to this day, though for my money the numbers were more predictive.

Widely regarded as a franchise defenceman in the making, Charles does it all. He combines size and a physical dimension with elite mobility; he’s still raw but even as a rookie it was easy to see those qualities on the ice. He’s even been compared to Scott Stevens thanks to the way he combines skating, physical play and offence. The scoring didn’t come as a rookie but he was an exceptional scorer at other levels prior to jumping into the NHL this year.

Charles had multiple partners this year, one a quality veteran puck-moving defenceman [Rob Blake] and the other a quality veteran defensive defenceman.

Darnell Nurse

I couldn’t resist putting Nurse on the list, because I’m a little torn on the player. When I watch him, I see his physical gifts and I think ‘when he puts it all together he’s going to be something else.’ When I look at his numbers, I end up comparing him to players like Jack Johnson. The problem is that the numbers are neutral, without bias, but don’t capture the whole picture, while the eye-test offers more nuance but is also susceptible to my personal bias (in this case, I’ve never seen a mean defenceman who can skate like Nurse that I didn’t like).

What sets Daniels apart from other defencemen his age is his physical game. He’s big and he’s mean, and he combines those qualities with exceptional skating ability; he’s even been compared to Chris Pronger. His offensive game has developed, though not yet at the NHL level, but his true calling is likely as a shutdown defenceman.

Daniels had multiple partners this year, but his most common was a quality veteran puck-moving defenceman [Andrej Sekera].

Jared Cowen

Voters got this one right; of the five players on this list Cowen at this point looks likely to have the least-impressive career. It’s interesting to me that he had limited ice-time at this point in his career. The coaches played the legs off everyone else on this list, but Cowen was carefully managed despite his draft pedigree.

Another big, physical defenceman, Edwards brings formidable size and strength to his NHL team. He’s not an elite skater, but he’s not lead-footed, either; he’s mobile for his size and is considered reliable at both ends of the ice. He’s not regarded as a serious offensive threat, but his scoring has improved significantly since his draft year and he had a reasonably strong major-league debut in that department.

Edwards had multiple partners this year, but his most common was a quality veteran puck-moving defenceman [Sergei Gonchar].

Thoughts

The thing I enjoyed about putting this list together was that it forced me to look at the players involved through a neutral—though admittedly limited—statistical light.

With Vlasic, the lesson I took home was about quality of competition: His numbers were okay but the fact the coach tossed him into the lion’s den was a pretty good indicator of what he’d become.

With Schenn, maybe the warning is that performance on a poor team (and particularly against second-pair opponents) shouldn’t be overrated. I’d also note the Kaberle effect but most of these players spent time with good partners.

With Johnson, I was reminded that draft pedigree and impressive athleticism are not always sufficient to project a guy as an impact player.

No take-home on Nurse yet; we don’t know how this is going to go. I wouldn’t be ready either to anoint him a franchise cornerstone or to dismiss the possibility that he one day will be.

With Cowen, I see a reminder that NHL coaches tend to have good instincts.

My key question for readers has less to do with the five defencemen, though, and more with the exercise itself. Is this something you enjoy? Should I do this sort of piece again (perhaps putting more effort into making these players anonymous, given how crafty you all tend to be)?