After looking at the forwards for the Florida Panthers, we’re now going to take a look at how the defensemen stack up against the rest of the league, again using Dominic Galamini’s tool (which has now be named “HERO” charts). They can be found here, and the write up for usage adjusted Corsi can be found here.
Aaron Ekblad
He’s 18.
Brian Campbell
Brian Campbell is no longer an elite offensive defenseman, but his impact on defense is impossible to miss and leads to his incredible overall percentage. The points may not be there, but Campbell has a massive positive effect on the game. While Ekblad has been impressive, I think it’s safe to say that the youngster’s numbers would be much lower if he didn’t have Campbell on the ice with him as much as he does.
Willie Mitchell
Mitchell has a decent affect on Corsi, enough to be considered a useful guy. Like Campbell, however, his production just hasn’t been there of late.
Dmitry Kulikov
Kulikov is starting to look like a poor man’s Campbell. I’ll take that any day of the week, especially since Kulikov’s impact has been well over top four level, and is borderline top pairing.
Erik Gudbranson
Gudbranson is a solid top four option right now, though his production is still lagging behind. It’ll catch up soon enough.
Dylan Olsen
Olsen definitely had the point production, though that might have been more luck than skill. He was an above average bottom pair defenseman, something that definitely helped the Panthers when he was up with the big club. It’ll be interesting to see if he gets called back up before the end of the season or if Alex Petrovic will be able to fill his shoes?
Conclusion
Though these charts provide a great visual and can be a useful tool, don’t use them to say, definitively, that Player A is better than Player B. They’re more for noticing trends and making observations than making analysis decisions, and that’s fine. Going overboard with new data/tools is one way to ruin meaningful analysis.