I ended up writing way more than intended for this, so the full breakdowns of each top D man from each Cup Finalist of the last 3 seasons can be found here. To those reading this to make sure I fulfilled the requirements and didn't sneak any unearned cash, I excluded all the words in this post from my word count in the full article (and exclude this explanation from the Deep Dive word count).

A D-Tour Through Recent Cup Finalists

First Deep Dive, here we go!

What kind of defenseman can a team rely on when games matter the most? For this writeup, I will be looking at the five teams that made it to the Cup Finals in the last three post-seasons (S78, S79, S80) and will analyze the top defenseman from each, to discover the ingredients that make for a #1 blueliner who delivers in the playoffs. This kind of inquiry will naturally have imperfect answers, but at minimum it will be a good case study in a rookie defenseman trying to learn from the success of those he hopes to emulate.

The question of how to identify a #1 D is murky enough, as icetime is spread out pretty evenly in this league and the defensive results of a team rely on multiple factors, including tactics, pairings/chemistry, and plain old dumb luck. I also want to be clear about this right off the bat: no player can singlehandedly carry a team, no matter how good their stats are. A great D can play on the third pairing and put up single digits point totals, and a very flawed D can put up great numbers while relying on their teammates to cover up their mistakes.

Still, there are those who have an outsized impact on their team’s success, and I want to see what (if anything) they have in common. I will be looking at each of the five finalist teams’ top defenseman, breaking down their TPE build, playoff statistics in the given season, and how they performed relative to their teammates in that playoff run. Each mini-profile will be structured as follows:

Player Name (Team Name)
1. Why did I label them a #1 D?
2. What kind of TPE build did they have?
3. What do the counting/advanced playoff stats say about them?
4. How did they perform in the Finals?

Conclusions

Firstly, this was just a really fun way to get myself acquainted with recent Finals matchups and some of the awesome players who made them happen (bonus that I got to look at two of my QCC predecessors). Despite whatever criticisms you might see in my breakdown, all of these defensemen have all accomplished a hell of a lot more than I have so far!

Now for some conclusions related to my research question:

1. While both offensive and shutdown D have been top pillars of deep playoff runs, I will give the edge to the defensively responsible ones. This isn’t just because Kenneth Lind hugely outscored all the shooting-accuracy-enjoyers and Chuck Chunky silenced all but one aspiring PP merchant in the final round, but also because Rodwin Dionicio and Jacppo Nummilavin proved that sprinkling some TPE in defensive attributes pays off for offensive D as well.

2. I do not understand why defensemen invest in shooting accuracy. This might be because in FHM I’m so used to seeing D with high shooting range and low accuracy, so the inverse looks wrong, but it really doesn’t seem to matter for playoff scoring. Follow your own path but consider that your TPE might be better spent elsewhere!

3. All of these defensemen invested heavily in physical attributes, whether they went with the speed/acceleration rushing D build or the balance/strength steady D build. None of them were randomly bad in any physical rating.

4. Point totals and plus/minus seem to not correlate with advanced statistics as much as I expected them to. The only top D who really looked like top D on the Corsi and Fenwick rankings were the two QCC blueliners. This might be due to the quality of competition they face, as Rodwin and Peter were both playing on the third pairing in their respective “top D” years.

I could probably keep going, but this was supposed to be a 500-word writeup and it spiraled wildly out of control. Thank you to anyone who read this, I would love to hear your own takeaways or corrections if you think I got anything wrong!

(670 words excluding italicized part)

  

Johan Lodewyk | #3 | Defense | Québec City Citadelles

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SMJHL Statistics:

S81 

(Regular) GP: 66 | G: 11 | A: 35 | P: 46 | +26

(Playoffs) GP: 10 | G: 2 | A: 3 | P: 5 | -1

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WJC Statistics:
S81 Team World
GP: 12 | G: 6 | A: 6 | P: 12 | -6
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Highlights:

S81

-Drafted 16th OA by Québec City Citadelles

-T-2nd in TPE among rookie S82 draft class

S82

-Drafted 8th OA by Baltimore Platoon

-T-1st in both points and goals by WJC defense!

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+5 tpe, approved

“The Wheel of Time turns, and Ages come and pass, leaving memories that become legend. Legend fades to myth, and even myth is long forgotten when the Age that gave it birth comes again. ... There are neither beginnings nor endings to the Wheel of Time. But it was a beginning.”





Ólafur Atlason| C | SMJHL Prospect | Future Edmonton Blizzard
Birthplace: Reykjavik, Iceland
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SMJHL Season Stats
S76: GP: 0 | G: 0 | A: 0 | P: 0 | 0 | PIM: 0 | Hits: 0 | |
SMJHL Playoff Stats
S76: GP: 0 | G: 0 | A: 0 | P: 0 | 0 | PIM: 0 | Hits: 0 | |
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SHL Season Stats