In my second Deep Dive article, I am analyzing the rookie defenders in the league. I gathered the statistics from all current prospects, to see how they rank in the different categories against each other.

TPE
At the moment, three players sit on top of that category. Teylora Petrov, Bane and Mikhael Petrov are tied in first place with 258 TPE. In 4th place follow Sarah Burke and Max Goodman with 255 TPE. In fact, there are at the moment 6 prospects within 6 TPE, and 11 prospects within 13 TPE. The least amount of TPE gathered have Bennet Hawtin, who is at 159 TPE and therefore didn‘t even get to play in a single game. Second to last is Oliver Setzinger with 182 TPE, he only played two games. All other players got to play in every single game of their respective team.

Goals
The topscorer among rookie defenders this season so far is Jonas Kahnwald from the Newfoundland Berserkers. He already scored 6 goals. In second place is Michael Withecheck with 5 goals, followed by a 4-player-tie of Max Goodman, Sachimo Zoidberg III, Matty David and Yuuto Kira Cloudera Jr. The only defender with at least one game and without a goal is Vili Afalava from the expansion team Nevada Battleborn.

Assists
The leader in assists so far is Michael Withecheck with 13 assists recorded. He has scored two more than Sachimo Zoidberg III, who ranks second in this category. In third place follows Karl Schaufelberger with 10 assists. Yuuto Kira Cloudera Jr and Teylora Petrov recorded 9 assists so far. The only player without an assist is Oliver Setzinger – who only played two games. The least assists besides him have Bane and Zebulon Leavitt with 4 assists.

Topscorer
After reading the previous two sections, it shouldn‘t be a surprise who ranks first in this category. Michael Withecheck scored 18 points in this category and leads it 3 points ahead of Sachimo Zoidberg III. Following in the third place are Karl Schaufelberger and Yuuto Kira Cloudera Jr with 13 points. The next players follow at 11 points in a 4-player-tie. The least points scored from all players with more than two games have Zebulon Leavitt and Vili Afalava with only 5 so far.

+/-
The +/- category has a confident leader. Jonas Kahnwald leads this category with +18 points, which is really good. The second players in this category are Michael Withecheck and Mikhael Petrov at only +7. In fact there are only 7 players with a positive +/- value when looking at rookie defenders. The best negative value is -7 for Jimmy Dekens at place #8 (if we don‘t count the gameless Bennet Hawtin who obviously is at 0). The worst point differential when on ice do have the two Battleborn player Sachimo Zoidberg III and Vili Afalava with -22.

Penalties in Minutes
This category has it‘s clear winner with an insane amount of penalty minutes. Boris Petrov managed to rack up 163 penalty minutes in only 37 games. He recorded 11 fights though. The second player in this category is Zebulon Leavitt with 36. The only player without a single penalty minute is Teylora Petrov.

Hits
The most Hits are recorded by the fighter in the class, Boris Petrov. He has the insane number of 231 hits in his stat line. The player with the second most hits isVili Afalava at 79, followed by Bane and Leavitt at 76 and 75. The least amount of hits has Teylora Petrov at 6 and Jonas Kahnwald at 16.

Giveaways
Tanjiro Kamado has the most giveaways with 30, followed by Jasper Maximov, Karl Schaufelberger and Michael Withecheck with 24. The least amount of giveaways has Jonas Kahnwald with only 4.

Takeaways
Vili Afalava leads in takeaways with 24, followed by Grandmaster Funk with 19 and Teylora Petrov and Max Goodman with 18. The least takeaways has Matty David with 5.

Shots Blocked
Sachimo Zoidberg III has blocked the most shots with 92. Second is Yuuto Kira Cloudera Jr with 82. The least blocked shots have Jonas Kahnwald and Julian Cunningham with only 4.

Time on Ice
The TOI for rookie defenders is higher compared to their offensive counterparts. The ice-time goes from the highest 22:15 to the lowest 14:45, all values to be very satisfied with. The ice-time leader is Vili Afalava with over 22 minutes, followed by Tanjiro Kamado and Sachimo Zoidberg III. They all play for the expansion team Nevada Battleborn. They are followed by a lot of Quebec City Citadelle players. In fact, the only two players in the top 10 of ice time, that aren‘t playing for an expansion team are 5th placed Michael Withecheck (20:08) for Anchorage Armada and 8th placed Evangelos Giannopoulos (19:23) for the Detroit Falcons.


Here is the table of rookie defenders ordered by TPE, to see where I got my data from:



APPROVED +5 TPE @sakrosankt

Good stuff! And man, Boris Petrov is a goon!

Zebulon Leavitt, Defense

Number:24