As the league enters the last laps of its playoff race, contending teams are looking for goals wherever they can get them. Few things can turn a game, or get a crowd roaring, like a goal from the blueline. A defender's goal can be a spark to get his forwards rolling, or it can be that subtle gamebreaker in a close contest between powerhouses at their best. As the games remaining get fewer and the races for positioning get tighter, there's no better time than now for an in-depth look at the five best lamp-lighters in the SMJHL's defensive ranks and the way their unique talents are used by their respective teams. Conveniently for the purposes of this analysis, these are also the only five defensemen in the league with ten or more goals to their names. 


In first place in terms of goals scored, we have Evangelos Giannopoulos of Detroit. With a statline of 15-15-30 in the 51 games he's played, he's precisely what you'd expect from the #1 defenseman of a team with its division lead firmly in hand. Sixth of all skaters by points on the Falcons, his TOI averages 21:52 per game, well over a full period per game played, with 2:40 average power play time also leading his team. His defensive partner is the much more defensively-minded Bjorn Thornsen, whose stat line of 6-21-27 is also outstanding but may be buoyed by the presence of Giannopoulos across from him. Thornsen, it should also be noted, is an anchor of Detroit's penalty kill, while Giannopoulos only sees penalty kill time when one of the usual penalty killing defensemen is the one in the box for the Falcons.

The second-highest scoring defenseman in the league, Quebec's Jesper Maximov, also leads his team in TOI, but by a surprisingly high margin. While Giannopoulos only has about 15 seconds average TOI over Thornsen in Detroit, Maximov has 21:03 average TOI, surpassing Quebec's next-highest at 19:56 by over a minute per game. Maximov's numbers, 13-25-38 in 53 games, are good for the most points by any defenseman in the SMJHL. The fact that that's still only good for eighth on the team in terms of points scoring despite being the powerplay quarterback speaks volumes about Quebec's offensive production.

Third in total goals comes Bane of the Nevada Battleborn. Interestingly, his 12-11-23 line in 51 games is sixth on his team as well, but not even the highest points total for defensemen on the Battleborn. That honor goes to Grandmaster Funk, with 7-17-24 over the same 51 games. Also of note, Bane, by TOI, is on the Battleborn's second defensive pairing. His 19:21 average TOI per game clocks in third on Nevada, behind the first pairing of Funk and Tuga'tuga'bo'atu. With Rude Sniff's 7-16-23 tying Bane, Nevada has the best defensive scoring depth of any team seen thus far, but Bane remains their lamp-lighter on the blue line.

Tied for fourth are Shion Okimoto of Newfoundland and Narboza Manyhands of Vancouver, with 11 goals apiece. Okimoto's 11-13-24 gives him a significant points advantage over Manyhands at 11-6-17, an advantage won in 52 games over 54. As seen in the trend above, Okimoto and Manyhands both lead their teams in TOI, but only Okimoto is his team's true powerplay maestro. Vancouver's powerplay is orchestrated instead by Matty Sandeen, who also leads his team's defensemen in points with 5-21-26. Manyhands, of all the defensemen on this list, does not seem to have reached his junior level peak just yet. Perhaps if we check back next year, we'll find a very different story behind Vancouver's blue line.

As one would expect, the top scoring defensemen in the league usually run their respective shows. The one true exception to this seems to be Nevada's Bane, who hasn't yet forced himself ahead of the exceptional pack of offensive defensemen the Battleborn's fans are right to be proud of.

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