The Toronto Maple Leafs are off to a shockingly good start to the season.
Shocking, that is, for everyone except me, who has maintained for over a year that the Toronto Maple Leafs were the NHL’s best team and just needed the results to prove it. The Leafs may or may not be in first place (this was written before last night’s game) but either way, they’re doing great.
One of the best parts of the new NHL season has been the emergence of Justin Holl. Or rather, the continued star turn of Justin Holl which started last season and which yours truly was mocked mercilessly for doing nothing more than pointing out he had better stats than an established NHL star who was oft rumored to be the target of a Leafs trade.
Such is the power of reputation over measurement in the NHL. Anyways, when I’m done bragging, I thought it would be interesting to check in on the stats and see who the best defenseman in the NHL has been so far. I doubt it’s Justin Holl (I wrote this paragraph before checking) but I suspect he’s up there.
Let’s get to it.
Who Is Currently the NHL’s Best Defenseman?
93 NHL defenseman, prior to last night, have skated for over 150 5v5 minutes, but if we move that to 175 minutes, we get a more workable 54 players, and a better (if only slightly) sample size.
Of the 54 most used defenseman, Cale Makar is in the lead with an incredible 61% Corsi. Charlie McAvoy, Samual Girard, Roman Josi and Justin Holl (56%) round out the top five. (The following tweet is from last year, just in case you think Holl came out of nowhere).
Two of the NHL D who started the least amount of shifts in the OZone.
— Editor in Leaf (@EditorinLeaf) October 11, 2020
64 GP 1228 TOI 49.41 CF% 51.67 SF% 48.04 X GF% 49 % SCF 45% HDSC
68 GP 1082 TOI 51.80 CF% 52.24 SF% 52.99 X GF% 52.86 SCF% 51.57% HDSC
Player A is Colton Paryko, player B is Justin Holl.
If we look at shots-for percentage, the new leader is now McAvoy, with Justin Holl second (the Leafs get 61% of the shots when he’s on the ice) followed by Makar, Justin Faulk and Neil Pionk.
Goals-for is the worst stat to use here so early because it’s almost entirely dependent on both the offensive and defensive goalie’s save percentage, but it’s worth mentioning that the Blues are 16-4 with Justin Faulk on the ice, good for an 80% goals for percentage. Wow! For what it’s worth, Holl is fourth in the NHL and the Leafs are a nice 11-6 with him on the ice.
A much better indicator of future performance, at least at this point, are expected goals, which try to take into account everything that has happened while ignoring the randomness of goalie’s save percentage. In this category, Makar is the King, McAvoy is second, Ben Chariot third, and Justin Holl fourth.
Scoring chance percentage : Makar, Faulk, Holl.
High Danger scoring chance percentage: Chariot, Makar….and 5th is Justin Holl.
5v5 individual points: Q.Hughes has seven, Makar has five, Holl, McAvoy and Faulk have four. This puts Holl 13th in the NHL on a per minute basis.
So, in conclusion, I think it’s pretty obvious that the best defenseman in the NHL so far this year is Cale Makar, but that Charlie McAvoy and Justin Faulk are pretty much no-doubt #2 and #3, with the edge going to McAvoy because he’s expected to be this good. Honorable mention to Justin Faulk and, insanely, Zedeno “what is an age curve” Chara. (all stats naturalstattrick.com).
How about that? Justin Holl, the third best defenseman in the NHL.