The NHL’s 10 worst contracts, 2021 edition: Drew Doughty retains his title

[What party?]

As far as I can tell neither of those guys ever signed what at the time was the biggest contract ever for a defenseman.

[Pickle_Pucks]

If DD played on TB, Toronto, Vegas etc., a more free wheeling team with defensive support he'd be going for the Norris easily.

Take away Drew and the Kings have the worst defensive corps in the league. I won't take the time to go over all the rosters but I would venture to say if you took away every teams' best dman, the remaining Kings group would be dead last.

Top 5 minus DD: Anderson, Bjornfort, Walker, Roy, Maata / Edler....yeah I can't see any team being worse than that...

Drew is still an elite Dman, and hopefully the "rebuild" is in full force and we can surround him with some real quality while he still has 3-4 good years in the tank.

[DryKing]

If DD played on TB, Toronto, Vegas etc., a more free wheeling team with defensive support he'd be going for the Norris easily.

Take away Drew and the Kings have the worst defensive corps in the league. I won't take the time to go over all the rosters but I would venture to say if you took away every teams' best dman, the remaining Kings group would be dead last.

Top 5 minus DD: Anderson, Bjornfort, Walker, Roy, Maata / Edler....yeah I can't see any team being worse than that...

Drew is still an elite Dman, and hopefully the "rebuild" is in full force and we can surround him with some real quality while he still has 3-4 good years in the tank.

I'd have to disagree with you. Last season the Kings were pretty average when it comes to defense and they will improve this year with more seasoning of the youngsters and the addition of Edler. I can name a number of teams with a worst defense corps than the Kings, starting with Buffalo. Also if you remove each teams top defensemen it gets even more lopsided.

https://www.oddsshark.com/nhl/defensive-stats

https://www.covers.com/sport/hockey/...ense/2020-2021

[Pickle_Pucks]

Buffalo, fair enough, maybe. If you take away Rasmus, but they also just traded their #2 guy so a little skewed...

Don't discount the Kings' system though, it's still a Sutter system at least to a degree so your defensive numbers will look decent on paper.

But take away the one outlier hot streak last season and the Kings were a bottom 3 team in the league. DD is a top 10 dman, easily. The proof is in all the success that those that have been traded away have achieved.

[Bogey]

I've really missed this kind of useful, constructive discourse.

[LAKingSteve]

I'd have to disagree with you. Last season the Kings were pretty average when it comes to defense and they will improve this year with more seasoning of the youngsters and the addition of Edler. I can name a number of teams with a worst defense corps than the Kings, starting with Buffalo. Also if you remove each teams top defensemen it gets even more lopsided.

https://www.oddsshark.com/nhl/defensive-stats

https://www.covers.com/sport/hockey/...ense/2020-2021

Interesting that you hear many of the insiders and folks within the Kings not being nearly as concerned about the D as they were with offense. I don't think D was terrible....the inability to score will always put that much more pressure on the defense which will generally make them look worse.

[Pickle_Pucks]

Interesting that you hear many of the insiders and folks within the Kings not being nearly as concerned about the D as they were with offense. I don't think D was terrible....the inability to score will always put that much more pressure on the defense which will generally make them look worse.

Good point. The Kings were nearly 100% further away from the being in the top 10 in goals scored vs. top 10 in goals against.

It would take .32 goals less a game to reach top 10 in GAA, while it would require .6 goals more a game to reach the top 10 in goals per game.

[jt]

If you are going to claim that Doughty was terrific during the 2019-20 season, I agree with you, there's nothing to argue about.

I'm not claiming it. I'm claiming that his peers claim it and I claim that real life NHL players are better judges of who's best than fans and analytic nerds). I also claim that there's a multitude of reasons many fans don't even understand like what affects real life NHL players on and off the ice that can make it look different to fans than real life NHL players. Kind of the "if you haven't played the game, you don't know...and you don't know what you don't know."

[jt]

As far as I can tell neither of those guys ever signed what at the time was the biggest contract ever for a defenseman.

Just want to put some info out there. Lidstrom was the highest paid NHL Dman from 02-03 thru 06-07. Biggest contract ever? No. But at the time he had the highest career earnings of any NHL D so while he didn't do it in a single contract he did have highest value contracts for many years. To me, that's splitting hairs because a sky high salary is a sky high salary whether it's 1 contract or 5.

[Helvetica]

I'm not claiming it. I'm claiming that his peers claim it and I claim that real life NHL players are better judges of who's best than fans and analytic nerds). I also claim that there's a multitude of reasons many fans don't even understand like what affects real life NHL players on and off the ice that can make it look different to fans than real life NHL players. Kind of the "if you haven't played the game, you don't know...and you don't know what you don't know."

Im not necessarily trying to argue against your point, because i do think that there is merit to the core argument here. But I would point out that analytic nerds would likely emphasis personal bias as being the whole reason the analytic movement sprung up in the first place. Specifically, to try and remove personal bias from the equation of evaluating a player's ability and contributions out on the ice. I don't want to derail this thread with discussion as to the validity of the fancy stats, that's a whole different discussion. But I do want to point out that, if you are somebody that follows the numbers, the whole point of following the numbers is so you're not reliant on the opinions of fans and players, because like it or not, both sides are susceptible to bias. So while i'll certainly take the opinion of actual hockey players over the opinions of fans on a message board, i'm not so easily swayed when it comes to the opinions of players vs. the actual numbers.