This week on Frozen Tool Forensics we are shifting gears a bit. So far we have been focused on trivial things like goal scoring and point production, but today we dig into peripheral categories, specifically for defense. For the purposes of this article we are going to mainly focus on hits and blocks (not penalty minutes or plus minus).

In my leagues that count peripheral categories I like my bottom defense to be strong peripheral contributors. It isn't too difficult to find a free agent defenseman who contributes hits, or blocks throughout the season or to boost production in any given week, but finding someone who consistently contributes both can be a bit more of a challenge. Today we are going to dig through the season data to date and see who is pulling their weight on the back end.

In order to review this I am pulling data from the Multi-Cat report. This report is great because it offers both total and per game stats as well as some combined stat categories. I pulled the data from November 16 so it does not include Thursday night's games, but the sample sizes I am using assure that the trends will be the same regardless.

The first group we are going to look at is players who are top contributors across the board. I am not looking for folks to excel in one category, but who are excellent in multiple. My standard for this is two or more stats per game in each category. We of course will be looking at hits and blocks, but what really seals the deal for this group is the fact that they also shoot. I find adding that third category really sets apart players who are likely a season hold from those who can often be cycled out. It is usually a small group of defensemen who can meet this standard and thus far it is in fact only two.

These two names honestly are not that much a surprise to folks to participate in these kinds of leagues. Darnell Nurse and Jacob Trouba are consistently top producers when categorized like this. They were two of the few who manage to sustain this kind of production. For Nurse, he pretty consistently hits the two per game metric for shots, and is usually close for hits and blocks every season, though one or the other might drift down below two per game by the end of each season. Trouba has just been elite. He has more than two shots per game in eight of his last ten seasons (and when he has missed the mark it has been by a very small margin), he has two and a half hits per game or more in each of this last five seasons, and has been over two blocks per game in each of his last four and in five of his last six. There isn't a lot of actionable advice here, for the most part these guys are known quantities in multi-cat leagues. They probably aren't available, but their consistency does make an argument for pushing them up your draft board in the future.

My next group is the pretty great but not quite elite category. These guys are missing the mark slightly in one or more category, but are still very good options.

I am further going to separate these guys into two groups. Adam Larsson and Mat Roy are not necessarily known for their point production and because of that are often available in leagues on and off throughout the season. Whether or not they are long term holds depends a lot of the specifics of your league settings and the number of guys rostered, but these two should be on your short list of players to keep an eye on and to add if you need to boost your stats.

Charlie McAvoy and Moritz Seider are another thing altogether. How many of the guys on any of these kinds of lists have access to a top power-play? These two. That's it. This is the list. Kris Letang used to be on it as well, but the arrival of Erik Karlsson certainly changed that for him. Seider and McAvoy may not have historically lit the world on fire with the point production (though they are both putting up excellent showings thus far this year) but their combination of peripheral production and access to point scoring opportunities is pretty unparalleled.

The final list is players who are above the two per game threshold in at least two of the categories.

Here is where we start to see a few more of our offensively minded d-men who also happen to block. Guys like John Carlson, Noah Dobson, Mike Matheson, Alex Pietrangelo, and Rasmus Andersson can all be valuable contributors, particularly when you add their point production to their peripherals, but are also missing out in places (usually in hits). Most of these folks again won't be available, but this is some justification to value them a little bit higher than folks who put up similar point totals on draft day.

We also have the more widely available guys who don't have the offensive upside like Connor Murphy, Mattias Samuelsson, and Radko Gudas. For the most part I don't hold these folks, but will rotate in the best option given the schedule. Chicago or Buffalo have a four game week? Great, I've got a solid add to help me in those areas.

That is all for this week.

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