This week on Frozen Tool Forensics we are going to continue our review of players who are contributing across multiple potential fantasy categories. For this week it is time for defense.

To gather the data for this review I ran the Multi-Category report on the Dobber Reports page. This report gives us basic scoring information as well as several peripheral categories that include shots, hits, blocks, plus minus, and penalty minutes. It also gives us some of those stats combined. All these categories are already split for us on a season and per game basis for easy analysis. For the purposes of this article I am focusing on shots, hits, and blocks (no penalty minutes). All the data here is also going to focus on the 25-26 season, we won't be hitting projections in this specific review.

To make the tables we will be looking at, I have exported the report and done some rearranging of the columns to focus on the relevant information. The tables start with basic player information on the left (name, position, team) and then the current season information (games player, shots per game, hits per game, and blocks per game).

Today we are going to specifically target defense. Usually, we start off with the best of the best, the players that are over two shots, two hits, and two blocks per game. The list is usually a short one, but in 25-26 there is no one who meets that criteria. The closest we came was Mackenzie Weegar.

In the summer of 2025 we had two elite names on our list; Mackenzie Weegar and Moritz Seider. We will get to Seider in a bit, but our list has been whittled down to one. Weegar had a big fall off in terms of point production, lost the top power play in Calgary, and then got traded to the Utah Mammoth. In Utah he also fell off this peripheral  pace. Through his 26 regular season and playoff games with the Mammoth, he averaged closer to 1.5 shots per game, 2.5 hits per game, and 1.5 blocks per game. There was maybe a slight trend up in his production and time on ice toward the end, but small sample sizes and all. The positive way to view this is that he will have a full off season and camp to get adjusted to Utah and will be able to return to the production we have come to expect. There is a bit of a flag though, given we don't know exactly what to expect from him on a new team. 

If we reduce the criteria slightly to get our second tier (1.5 or above in each category):

Again, we have a small list and a couple of familiar names. Darnell Nurse and Seider both made our list last summer as defense who typically put up very solid peripheral production.

Nurse has consistently hovered around this elite tier, but interestingly it was his block rates that were the low point in 24-25, and hits the low point in 25-26. It will be interesting to see what happens in San Jose. A potentially increased role probably means opportunity to increase those peripherals. Additionally, he does have several recent years right on the edge, so he is certainly a good consolation prize for cross category peripherals.

Like with Nurse, Jacob Trouba is often hovering around these tiers. There is usually one stat each year that keeps him from the elite category, and in 25-26 it was blocks, where he dropped from 2.7 per game down to 1.84. He is also moving on to San Jose, where he is projected to have a fairly large role given the depth of that blueline. That has to mean reasonably positive things for his peripherals.

Sean Walker is a new entry on this list with career highs in shots and hits and falling two blocks shy of his career high in that category. It helps when you jump to almost 22 minutes of ice time. Given this is the first time for all of these things in his eight-season career there is a little bit of a question mark of whether he can repeat. If he can repeat that time on ice though he is a nice under the radar pick for peripherals.

Like with our forwards it is also interesting to know if any of these players put up points in addition to their peripherals. This next list shows the highest point producers (with a cut off of a 45-point pace), who are putting up at least 1.5 shots per game and over one hit and one block per game.

This is a much smaller list than in the summer of 25. We are missing guys like Seth Jones, Dougie Hamilton, Aaron Ekblad, Neal Pionk and Weegar. All of them have represented on these lists in the past but could not do so in 25-26.

Seider is the pretty clear winner here. He doesn't quite match the point pace of Charlie McAvoy, but his peripheral contributions across the board are a tier better. Seider's 60-point pace was a career high and he needed 28 power-play points to make it happen. He had a very high points participation rate on the power play, and with questions about Dylan Larkin's commitment to the team, and given Seider isn't likely the long-term answer to quarterbacking the top power play, it is fair to wonder if that number is repeatable.

McAvoy also has some question marks in terms of production. He hit a 72-point pace for the first time in his career. He has one other season over a 60-point pace, and six seasons at or below a 52-point pace. There doesn't seem to be anything dramatically different in his deployment compared to some of those other seasons, so like with Seider, the question marks linger.

Filip Hronek had his highest hit numbers, and close to his career high in blocks in a season where he averaged a career high 25 minutes a night. The theme did not carry over to his shots though where it seems like he has been trending down since 20-21. Still, it was a slight bump over his 24-25 season, so that is something. Vancouver is a mess, so will probably still be relying heavily on Hronek and that hopefully means he can keep up some amount of this peripheral floor. The bigger question comes on the power play. He put up 21 power-play points, which is not likely repeatable unless he lands the top power-play gig. He definitely had it at the end of the season, but Vancouver did just sign Zeev Buium to a big contract, and we have to imagine they would like to give him a shot there as well.

That is all for this week.

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