10 Interesting (To Me) Stats For This Week - January 20
Welcome back to another week of ’10 Interesting (To Me) Stats’! Using tracking data from All Three Zones, last week’s newsletter looked at changes in playstyles among teams, and forwards, at 5-on-5 this season when compared to the prior two seasons. This week, let’s do the same thing, using the same tracking data source, but averting our gaze to defencemen.
We are limiting the sample to defencemen with at least 250 tracked minutes from 2023-2025 and 100 tracked minutes in 2025-26. That gives us a pool of 136 rearguards. All data is current as of Sunday night, January 18th.
1 – Noah’s Arc
In our sample of 136 defencemen, there are four that have seen an improvement of at least one standard deviation in their rate of scoring chance assists (helpers on teammate chances) and a decline of one standard deviation in their combined botched defensive zone retrieval and failed zone exit percentages. In other words, these are the four blue liners with the biggest improvements in offensive zone playmaking while limiting defensive zone mistakes:
Noah Dobson has often been tasked with shutting down the opposition’s top competition and though the goal differential isn’t good yet (minus-1 at 5v5), that has been improving for him since the tough goaltending stretch the Habs went through in November/December. If his tracking data stays at the level where it is, he’s going to be a big part of Montreal’s playoff push after the Olympics.
2 – All Hail Mikhail
Hockey is a funny game. When using the parameters we just used for Dobson – improvement in chance assists and decline in botch+fail% – while adding in a big positive change in rate of zone entries, we go from four defencemen to two defencemen. One is a current Tampa Bay Lightning, and one is a former Bolt:
Darren Raddysh is a breakout player from this year, so we’ll save him for another time. The interesting part for Mikhail Sergachev is all this involvement has him with 1.14 points per 60 minutes at 5-on-5, which is in line with his three-year average prior to this season (1.16). He also has a negative 5-on-5 goal differential (-12) for the first time in any season with at least appearances. That should get better, but there’s not a lot of time left to turn things around.
3 – Stupider Like a Fox!
I repeat: Hockey is a funny game. When we use the same tracking categories we used for Dobson and Sergachev (chance assists and botch+fail%) but look in the other direction to see who had the biggest drops in both areas, we again get four names. Two of the names are unexpected, one is a young player still making his way, and one is a 27-year-old former Norris Trophy winner:
The funny part is that before Adam Fox’s injury, his 5-on-5 goal share and expected goal share were career-highs. The Rangers were also shooting a career-best 10.5% with Fox on the ice and he had a .929 save percentage behind him, so that helps. Either way, there were signs of trouble before the injury so let’s see how things go whenever he returns.
4 – A Man Named Dougie
Dougie Hamilton has not been nearly as productive as he usually is, but he also has been on the ice for just 2.0 goals against/60 at 5-on-5. It is by far his lowest mark in his five Devils seasons, and his tracking data provides a possible explanation: There are seven defencemen with declines of at least one standard deviation in their rate of scoring chance contributions (individual chances + assists on teammate chances) and offence created off the cycle/forecheck (shots and assists on both the cycle and forecheck):
Hamilton has been involved in fewer 5-on-5 goals than any season of his career, which makes sense seeing these declines, but it seems he’s playing safe in the offensive zone to keep the shots and goals against down. This may be a conscious change in his game rather than a decline in his offensive skill.
5 – McCloud
There are 12 defencemen who’ve seen a decline in their combined botch+fail percentage of at least 25%. In that group are two pairs of defencemen from two teams: one from Washington (Matt Roy and Rasmus Sandin), and one from Vegas with Zach Whitecloud and Brayden McNabb:
Notice how these two went from two of the six worst botch+fail% marks from 2023-25 to better-than-league-average in 2025-26. Vegas has a three-year-high goals-for rate with Whitecloud on the ice at 5-on-5, which reflects this improvement. Things are less rosy for McNabb, but the team is also shooting 7.9% with him on the ice after three straight years of 8.5% or higher and a three-year average of 9.1%.
6 – Fowl Play
With St. Louis last year, Cam Fowler managed 5.76 chance contributions/60 off the rush. In Anaheim the year before, that was 5.53. So far in 2025-26 with the Blues, that number is 1.65. Unsurprisingly, that gives him the largest drop in contributions off the rush among all defencemen in our sample:
Dots in the bottom-right quadrant were above league average from 2023-25 but below league average in 2025-26, and Fowler is at the bottom. Maybe there’s a reason his on-ice goals-for rate and point production at 5-on-5 resemble his latter Anaheim years rather than his first St. Louis year.
7 – All Hail Cale
Colorado’s success gives us many stories worth discussion, but for today, the change to Cale Makar’s game is our focus. There are 10 defencemen in our sample who’ve seen a decline in contributions off the rush of at least one standard deviation while also seeing an improvement in contributions off the cycle above the league average. Most are depth defencemen, but one is Makar:
The interesting part is that as a group, Colorado’s defencemen are averaging 0.87 more contributions off the rush this season compared to last, a number that would be even higher if we exclude Makar. He is playing it a little safe, but his point production at 5-on-5 has increased while his goals-against rate has decreased. It seems the change is working well for him.
8 – Nemec’s Manifesto
At the other end of the spectrum from Makar are 12 defencemen who’ve improved their rate of contributions off the rush by at least one standard deviation while also seeing an above-average improvement in their cycle contributions. One of them is New Jersey’s young blue liner Šimon Nemec:
Nemec’s production at 5-on-5 is a career-high, which is nice, but this huge jump in rush offence has led to 3.2 goals against/60 at 5-on-5, a career-worst, and the second-worst mark on the Devils’ blue line. He is still just 21 years old so for now we can chalk it up to a young player still rounding out his game, but let’s see how the rest of the season goes.
9 – Best Hughes
Great players keep getting better, and Quinn Hughes may be doing just that. There are five defencemen in our sample who have a 75th percentile improvement in their rate of scoring chance assists, zone entries, and percentage of entries carried in. One of them is, of course, Mr. Hughes:
The odd part here is Hughes is figuring in on just 39.1% of goals scored with him on the ice at 5-on-5, the second-lowest rate of his career and far off his three-year average of 45.8%. I suspect that he will be involved in far more goals down the stretch and considering he already had a 78-point/82-game pace, that means well over a point-per-game status.
10 – Winnipeg Jest
One thing that popped up when going through these numbers is the Winnipeg Jets’ blue line. There are 26 defencemen in our sample who’ve seen a decline in both their rates of scoring chance contributions and zone entries with a worsening combined botch+fail percentage. Of those 26 defencemen, four of them come from the Winnipeg blue line:
Josh Morrissey’s 5-on-5 production has still been excellent, but the team is shooting 14.9% with him on the ice where he’s never had a season over 10%, something that should decline significantly down the stretch. With Winnipeg’s depth forwards struggling to produce, the top of the lineup due for a heavy percentage regression, and their defencemen getting much less involved in the attack, it’s a wonder what Winnipeg’s 5-on-5 offence looks like in the second half. My guess: not great.
Until next week.
