This week we are finishing up our most valuable skater series. We have already touched on centers, left wings, and right wings and those articles can be viewed here. So now we are on to defensemen. Check out the rest of those articles for the full story.

This week on Frozen Tool Forensics: Most Valuable Defenseman

As in with previous articles we are going to quickly address our scoring criteria and method.

Quick notes on data from first article:

For the purposes of this article we are going to use standard Yahoo point scoring to come up with a value for each player. That (unfortunately) includes plus/minus, and categories like hits and penalty minutes in addition to goals, assists, and power-play points…The draft position data data was pulled from Yahoo at the start of the season, and only for the top 200 players. Two hundred was picked as it is a round number that is a reasonable (if slightly low) approximation for a lot of leagues and it is a pain to export data from Yahoo. It also will not completely match Yahoo's current ADPs as those will take into account drafts that took place once the year began….Oh and we are pulling all of the season data from Frozen Tool's Multi-Cat report to ensure we get those hits, blocks, PIMs, and plus/minus.

So who were 21-22's highest scoring D-men?

Name	Pos	Team	GP	PTS/G	Fantasy Pts	Fantasy Rank
RADKO GUDAS	D	FLA	77	0.21	689	18
CALE MAKAR	D	COL	77	1.12	673.6	19
ROMAN JOSI	D	NSH	80	1.20	647.3	25
VICTOR HEDMAN	D	T.B	82	1.04	630.2	29
KRIS LETANG	D	PIT	78	0.87	618.8	34

This one is wild. This scoring structure has typically provided a slightly unexpected ranking of some skaters, with heavy peripheral players getting fantasy points is just wild. The man had 16 points this season. The reason is not hard to figure out, penalty minutes and hits. He had at least double the penalty minutes (at 105) of anyone else in the top five with Mackenzie Weegar as the next highest ranked player (35th overall) with a high volume of penalty minutes (81, good for third among defensemen). The drop off is pretty steep for penalty minutes with only two players in the 80s and three in the 60s, but that is nothing compared to hits. Gudas leads defensemen in hits with 355 and the next closest person totaled 230. There is the same difference between Gudas and his closest rival (Rasmus Ristolainen) than Risto and the 15th ranked defender in hits and it is only that close because hits drops off pretty fast. There are three tiers of defensemen. Up to 110 ish hits, which contain the vast majority of D, 110-230 which contains about 12 D, and then Gudas in a tier unto himself. For context if that range were applied to goals Austin Matthews would have put up 85 this season. If this were points Connor McDavid would have scored 177 (which he seems to be trying to do just in the postseason alone).

The rest of this list isn't too shocking. We have known for most of the season (and for several seasons) how good Cale Makar, Roman Josi, and Victor Hedman are. Kris Letang would have been a little bit of a surprise in the preseason, but we have watched him put up an excellent season before, so it is not unexpected to see him rounding out the top five.

Our next list is the attempt to take expectations and draft positions into effect. We take all of our players' fantasy output compared to their ADP and get the trend line equation. Then by knowing a player's ADP we can estimate the amount of points the average player drafted in that position would have gotten and compare that to the points each player actually put up.

Name	Pos	Team	GP	PTS/G	Fantasy Pts	Fantasy Rank	Expected Points	Point Difference
RADKO GUDAS	D	FLA	77	0.21	689	18	312.53	376.47
MACKENZIE WEEGAR	D	FLA	80	0.55	615.7	35	407.07	208.63
ROMAN JOSI	D	NSH	80	1.20	647.3	25	493.46	153.84
KRIS LETANG	D	PIT	78	0.87	618.8	34	465.75	153.05
RASMUS DAHLIN	D	BUF	80	0.66	469.9	93	338.61	131.29
CHARLIE MCAVOY	D	BOS	78	0.72	611.9	38	498.35	113.55
TONY DEANGELO	D	CAR	64	0.80	457	106	346.76	110.24
CALE MAKAR	D	COL	77	1.12	673.6	19	568.44	105.16
VICTOR HEDMAN	D	T.B	82	1.04	630.2	29	540.73	89.47
JAMIE OLEKSIAK	D	SEA	72	0.24	356	215	268.52	87.48

Cale Makar and Victor Hedman are clearly ranked a bit lower in this context due to their draft position and of course Gudas reigns supreme here as expectations for him were very low (also his draft position is impacted by the many leagues that don't place as much of a value on his hits and penalty minutes).

Mackenzie Weegar just missed a top five ranking overall and is worth mentioning here. As stated above he contributed across the board in this structure putting up a 45-point pace and strong hits/blocks/penalty minutes. The overall effect was a very valuable defenseman. He fell back to earth a little on the scoring front, dropping from a 55-point pace down to a 45-point pace, but he saw career high ice time, shots, hits, and blocks per game. He did all of this with very limited power-play time so watch out if he ever usurps Brandon Montour for consistent second unit time.

Charlie McAvoy had himself a career year and like Weegar just missed out on a top five overall D spot. It was a highly anticipated year, and many predicted he would take a step forward and finally hang on to the top power-play spot that Boston brass had long tried to get Matt Grzelyck to hold. He had career high total time on ice, and power-play time which resulted in career high points, power-play points, shots, hits, and blocks per game. McAvoy has clearly arrived.

Our most valuable list wouldn't be complete without looking at players who weren't drafted at all (at least according to our data set – ADP over 200).

Name	Pos	Team	GP	PTS/G	Fantasy Pts	Fantasy Rank
LUKE SCHENN	D	VAN	66	0.26	505	72
MARK BOROWIECKI	D	NSH	57	0.07	496	79
BRENDEN DILLON	D	WPG	79	0.25	462	102
NIKITA ZADOROV	D	CGY	74	0.30	453	108
MORITZ SEIDER	D	DET	82	0.61	435.9	126

This group isn't a particularly inspiring group to write about. The top four are valued in this format because of their peripheral contributions so it isn't entirely surprising that they wouldn't have a high draft ranking overall, but would have had success putting up fantasy points in this point structure.

Mortiz Seider is the obvious exception here and he had a remarkable season. He has already been written about extensively though so I don't know that I have much else to add here.

Now I won't leave it entirely at that as there are a number of players who absolutely tanked their fantasy managers this season.

Name	Pos	Team	GP	PTS/G	Fantasy Pts	Fantasy Rank	Expected Points	Point Difference
RYAN ELLIS	D	PHI	4	1.25	28.8	786	397.29	-368.49
ALEC MARTINEZ	D	VGK	26	0.31	84	656	354.91	-270.91
DOUGIE HAMILTON	D	N.J	62	0.48	263.3	366	519.54	-256.24
JAKOB CHYCHRUN	D	ARI	47	0.45	203.9	477	451.08	-247.18
KEITH YANDLE	D	PHI	77	0.25	52.9	716	299.49	-246.59

Ryan Ellis, four games played. Pretty clear disappointment. Alec Martinez, 26 games, again pretty clear reason for not meeting expectations.

Quick side note here. As much as we can question a lot of things about Vegas' season, and missing the playoffs for the first time, this is the third consecutive week where one of the biggest disappointments at a position has been on the Vegas roster. In each case it isn't even that the player played poorly, in most cases it was because they missed significant time.

Jakob Chychrun's fall from grace this season was well documented, so it isn't a surprise to see him in this list (plus he missed time). Dougie Hamilton also isn't a surprise as he had pretty hefty expectations going into the season, but wasn't the same after being injured and played most of the season in a very different role than we had assumed. The big question for him during this offseason is whether or not he will be able to return to role and his old form.

Keith Yandle though? He did not have a successful season in Philly. What is surprising though is that apparently the collective 'we' thought he might be ok? I guess the hope might have been that he was going to be a power-play specialist and would put up a few points in spite of Ryan Ellis also being brought in? I mean sure he did get some, with 11 of his 19 points coming on the power-play, but that was with Ellis out all season, which folks wouldn't have known when drafting. Yandle is very much not an exciting player and I very much hope he is not represented on this list next season because folks are not drafting him.

That is all for this week

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