We recently introduced a new project, the NHL 500, by looking at the game’s top 50 goaltenders. We then turned to defencemen, starting with the top 75 right-side defencemen. In this slideshow, we finish our work on the blue line by turning to the 75 best left-side defencemen in the game.
What are we looking for here? We can explain it in one question: Taking into account the available evidence, what would a reasonable person expect from every player in the league in this coming year?
Our analysis is primarily rooted in major league work, which means we’re omitting rookies. We don’t care about contracts or long-term trade value. We don’t care about what happened last year, except insofar as it predicts what will happen in the coming year.
Our process leans heavily on analytics and involves creating a 100-point scale for every position. A grade of 50 indicates an average player at his position, with a higher total obviously being better. For the most part, talent tends to cluster around the average, with elite players being relatively rare.
For defencemen specifically, we’ve divided our analysis into three ...
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Article written by Jonathan Willis
NHL 500: Ranking the Top 75 Left Defensemen
October 4th, 2015 by Jonathan Willis Leave a reply »
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