At what age does a defenseman's production typically peak?

While doing offseason evaluations and preparations, one of the biggest questions/concerns among poolies is when a player they own will peak (or whether he’s already peaked). Avid readers of my column know I believe that when attempting to predict the fantasy future poolies should consider patterns from the fantasy past, so for my next few columns I’ll be crunching numbers to determine – on paper – when players at certain positions apparently peak.

This week kicks off with defensemen, followed by forwards in my next column, and then finally goalies. I’ll start today with explaining what data I’ll use and why, then get to the all-important numbers.

Challenges to Gathering Data

Of course there’s no hard and fast rule on when players peak. No matter what this research reveals, there will always be exceptions to past trends among current and future players. But in hopes of landing on the most reliable data, I decided to look at top defenseman scorers per season to determine the average age among them, and in turn that would represent the age when a present-day defenseman would be expected to peak.

One challenge was to account for differences in rearguard scoring rates over the years. I figured the best way to deal with that would be to go by the spot where a defenseman finished in scoring, versus how many points he tallied. That also would allow me to include data from the lockout-shortened, 48-game 2012-13 campaign.

The drawback of that type of approach is it overlooks Band-Aid Boys, who in many cases don’t manage to suit up for enough games to be a top scorer in a particular season (or seasons). Although admittedly frustrating, Band-Aid Boys can be quite productive when they do manage to play; so what I decided to do – for all seasons other than 2012-13 – is if a rearguard played 40+ games, and, based on projecting his scoring pace to a full 82-game schedule, would’ve finished in the top 15 in d-man scoring, then I included his data in the analysis. The result was between zero and four defensemen being added to the analysis for each year.

In terms of where to draw the line on how many defensemen to include, I went with the top 25 scoring d-men for each season. I figure that’s a good balance between too little and too much data, especially since I felt once we get past #25 we start getting into “dime a dozen” territory where rearguard scoring is more bunched together and thus somewhat less important to closely assess.

As such, for each season of data there will be information provided for 25 defensemen, plus, as noted above, any Band-Aid Boys whose prorated total would’ve put them in the top 15. Also, there could be still more rearguards included for a given season to account for ties in scoring (i.e., if any beyond the #25 highest scorer had the same number of points as #25). For example, in 2016-17 the 24th through 31st highest scoring d-men all had 39 points so that season has well more data than some others.

I also wrestled with how far back to go (i.e., how many seasons into the past) and how to address d-men (like Ray Bourque, Al MacInnis, and Nicklas Lidstrom) who defied the odds and played at the highest level until each was quite old by hockey standards. In the end, I decided upon 1996-97, which seemed far back enough to allow meaningful data yet not so far as to go back into a truly different era, and I didn’t disqualify any players who excelled into their “old age” since if I did it would open the door to all sorts of questions about where else to draw lines.

The Data

For each season (not including the canceled 2004-05 campaign) I’ve indicated the average age of the top 25+ scoring rearguards, plus how many fell into each of six age brackets: teenagers, age 20 to 23, age 24 to 27, age 28 to 31, age 32 to 35, and age 36 or older. Here’s how the numbers look:

Conclusions/Observations

In many ways this data speaks well for itself; but I’ll go ahead and make a few notable observations and draw some possible conclusions. First, however, I’ll go over the averages.

Dissecting the Averages

Overall, the “peak” age for a defenseman is age 28 and three months (i.e., 28.24), although as will be discussed more below that is somewhat inflated by past data. Also, if we add up the average age ranges, we get a total of 27.9 (let’s call it 28); what that means is the averages per age range represent the number of defensemen in that range one would expect to find within the top 28 defensemen scorers per season. Accordingly, this suggests that on average we’ll find a teen among the top 28 only once every five years, and more than twice as many 24-27 year olds as 20-23 year olds, plus more within the 28-31 age range than age 32 or older. Probably the biggest surprise was there being more, on average, in the 32-35 range than within the 20-23 ranks, although for what it’s worth more recent trends differ.

There was Some Variation from the Average, but not too Much

The biggest gap in average age variation among these 20 seasons was just under three years (29.65 in 2008-09 vs. 26.85 in 2015-16), which sounds like not that much but is a pretty big separation if you pause to think about many players being fantasy worthy for not even ten years. Then again, all but three seasons had an average that was either not lower than 27.00 or not higher than 29.00, so other than a few outlying seasons things were closer when you compared most years.

Top Scoring Defensemen Are Younger Now Than in the Recent Past

In these 20 seasons’ worth of data the average age was less than 28 only seven times, but six of those instances came in the last seven seasons and the three lowest averages among all 20 seasons were the most recent three. Also, although the number of 20-23 year olds who finished in the top 25+ has stayed relatively similar for a decade, top scoring rearguards age 32+ are apparently becoming more and more a thing of the past. What’s the explanation? For one, in the salary cap era teams are more apt to give younger players a chance to shine, and in turn they’re capitalizing by their mid-20s. Plus, the game is getting faster, which makes it difficult for as many older players to keep pace and stay as productive.

Despite Appearances, Teenage Defensemen Have a Decent Success Rate

I realize a total of four instances in 20 seasons of a teenager finishing in the top 25+ in scoring looks like a pretty small number, but here’s the thing – since 1996-97 there’ve been only 17 instances in total of a teenage rookie playing 75+ games in a season. Eight of those 17 (i.e., nearly half) scored 30+ points, with four being good enough to land in the top 25+ for that particular season. Thus, if a teenage d-man cracks his team’s everyday line-up, there’s a decent chance he’ll be fantasy-worthy. This having been said…..

Early Breakouts Don’t Necessarily Equate with Long Term Fantasy Stardom

Other than Zack Werenski last season there were seven defensemen aged 18 or 19 who put up 40+ points in one of these 20 campaigns. Of them, only one (Erik Karlsson) turned into a bona fide superstar, although in fairness another (Bryan Berard) had a very promising career derailed by injury. Among the other five, three had a couple of great seasons (Dion Phaneuf, Oleg Tverdovsky, Drew Doughty) while the other two (Tyler Myers, Cam Fowler) apparently peaked early. Let this serve as a reminder that Werenski isn’t a lock to be a fantasy star.

Older Defensemen Are Less Likely to be Productive, but Those Who Are Tend to Stay Productive

Within this time range, there were 13 different defensemen who posted 45+ points at least four separate times within their 30s and – believe it or not – only 13 who did so at least four times in their 20s! Who’d have guessed that? Thus, while there’s apparently a bigger risk that a defenseman won’t stay productive after age 30, if he does do so then there’s a good chance he stays productive well into his 30s. So be careful not to cast aside your grey beard rearguards prematurely.

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I hope this was useful food for thought. Be sure to come for my next column when I do the same data gathering and evaluation for forwards, and then after that for netminders. Until then, enjoy your offseason. But let this be a reminder to keep doing your homework, since the edges you gain now will help pay dividends once the 2017-18 fantasy campaign gets underway.