Right. Burns has had a good season and a half (I accounted for this earlier), and Hedman is outscoring EK for the first time ever. I don’t think the last two seasons is a good indicator of how good a defenseman is, especially in the case of Burns who has increased his effectiveness dramatically over the past few…

Yes, but they’re very close, and Karlsson out scores all of them (except for Burns) by a lot.

And that’s 100% where we disagree. I believe his O more than compensates for the gap (which is not massive). Although, Burns is killing him in offensive stats this season, so that argument holds more water to me than Doughty. I think Doughty makes a lot of mistakes similar to the ones that everybody highlights as downs…

“Struggles with defensive-zone coverage at times, and isn’t an ideal shutdown defenseman” isn’t saying he sucks.

SF/60, SA/60, Corsi, and any other stat that tracks shots shows that the Senators limit shots and create chances far more frequently when EK is on the ice than off. A defenseman’s job is to prevent teams from scoring/ shooting at their net, and Karlsson effects his teams’ ability to do this more than anyone else. The…

“Making jokes about Blackhawks fans is off limits because of how good we are.”

Oh, me too! I just understand why they didn’t because Holland wasn’t smart enough to play him in the NHL all season.

Karlsson is highly underrated defensively, and is much stronger offensively than every other defenseman in the league. The whole “Karlsson sucks at defense” argument is only made by people who don’t watch the Sens play (in fairness, why would you?).

Again, +/- is a garbage stat. All it tells you is that the Senators aren’t very good defensively, but is much more reliant on team defense and goaltending. It doesn’t tell you much (if anything) about an individual player.

I love that you think +/- is a valuable stat.

You can say it as many times as you want, but there aren’t any statistics that back it up.

Hahaha, I’ll make fun of Nielsen all day, but I actually like him. It’s unfortunate that Mantha hasn’t played a whole season. If he had, I’d wager he would be the easy choice right now.

Sure, he can defend better than EK. Fortunately for the Senators, they don’t have to do much defending when EK is on the ice. Best defenseman in the league by miles.

This was good until you said Drew Doughty is the best defenseman in the league...

“Panarin got snubbed. The league hates how good we are.”

[points at Frans Nielsen]

Someone can correct me if I’m wrong, but it’s my understanding that this is him doing an “open” version of an old magic trick. Catching a bullet with the teeth was a magic trick in the past, where audience members didn’t know about the metal cup in the mouth. Blaine is doing it and not pretending he’s actually…

If we could have John Oliver every night... swoon.

Fair point. I would rather it be Eichel.

You aren’t the only one. Then the response is, “why do you hate Toews?” I don’t hate Toews. I just don’t see what all the fuss is about. He’s a really good hockey player. The fact that I still hear the “he’s better than Crosby” argument is baffling.