Thank you, as always, for reading the Devils’ Advocates Substack! If you enjoy the quasi-daily content, please consider subscribing and sharing with your friends, family, and any Devils fan you know. It is completely free of charge and helps out quite a bit!
Consider checking out the Devils’ Advocates Podcast, which features weekly episodes chock-full of in-depth content and exciting guest appearances. They’ll be available on this Substack, but you can also listen on your favorite platforms at the following links:
Another day, another ranking of the Metropolitan Division teams’ positions. This time around, I’ll be looking at the defense groups for each organization. Let’s get right into it!
While he might not be the all-time great he was earlier in his career, Erik Karlsson is still a fantastic defenseman — a top-20 blueliner in the league — at 36. Shockingly, his defensive numbers were pretty average, with an expected goals above replacement (xGAR)1 of +0.5 on the defensive side of things in 2025-26. Of course, he was still his dominant offensive self, with his +12.6 offensive xGAR ranking 10th in the entire NHL among defensemen.
Past him, though, things are a bit bleak for the Penguins, especially given that they let Ryan Shea walk to the Edmonton Oilers.
Sam Girard is useful enough in sheltered minutes, and shockingly sported positive defensive results in his 20 games with the Penguins, but there have been and always will be questions as to whether or not he can put those results up in true second-pair minutes. That said, he is an upgrade over Brett Kulak, who he was traded for. Kudos to Kyle Dubas there. Ivan Solovyov is a solid depth defenseman, too, who has consistently sported positive on-ice metrics. Expect him to get some looks at the NHL level in 2026-27.
Trevor van Riemsdyk is also solid enough, as he has sported a positive xGAR for the vast majority of his career and has typically won his minutes in terms of expected goal share (xGF%) and the like. His two-way chops are solid in third-pair minutes, but I am again questioning if he is able to put those numbers up in non-sheltered minutes. He’s also 35, so it’s possible that we see him finally downtrend.
Kris Letang is a shell of his former self, having ranked last on all of the Penguins in xGAR (-2.9) and not having a single facet of the game in which he was positive in that metric. He’s only getting older, too — he’ll be celebrating his 40th birthday at the end of April 2027. Perplexingly, he has another year left on his contract after that. Declan Carlile and Kaedan Korczak are both serviceable bottom-pair defensive defensemen, with Carlile sporting a +3.0 defensive xGAR and Korczak rocking a +6.9 defensive xGAR in 2025-26.
I’ve always been surprised at Ryan Graves’s presence in the AHL, where he spent quite a bit of time last season. In part, it’s due to his $4.5 million AAV salary, and in part, it is because he has put up respectable on-ice numbers whenever called upon at the NHL level. If I were running the show, I’d probably have him as a mainstay on the second pair given how bleak things look for them past Karlsson in that respect.
For the Penguins, despite having a true difference-maker on the back end, their ultimate lack of second-pair caliber defensemen beyond him left me no choice but to give them the last spot in the Metro Division. Who is going to play next to Karlsson? Who is going to play on the second pair? How many third-pair-caliber defensemen does an organization need in the lineup?
The Flyers are in a similar boat, but they’re admittedly a step up across the board from their biggest rival in the Penguins. Travis Sanheim is still a legitimate first-pair defenseman, having ended 2025-26 12th in the entire league (among rearguards) in xGAR by virtue of his excellent two-way game. He’s a bona fide #1, and that has serious value, and there’s no reason to believe he’ll take a step back, even if he’s now on the wrong side of 30.
I do question who will play alongside him.
It could be Jamie Drysdale, who is entering his age-24 season and who finished last season fourth among Flyers defensemen in total xGAR. He had a sound offensive output in that regard and developed slightly defensively, finally turning the corner into a positive rather than being a negative in his own end. He did it while playing over 21:30 per night, too, so it seems likely that they’re expecting him to blossom into Sanheim’s partner on the first pair.
Beyond him, they have three offensive black holes who provide excellent defensive value in Nick Seeler (+1.0 offensive xGAR and +3.6 defensive xGAR), Cam York (-3.4 and +7.2), and Rasmus Ristolainen (-3.0 and +1.8). All three have played bottom-four minutes for them for quite some time, which is their deserved spot in terms of talent level. I do think York is a legitimate second-pair option, but Seeler and Ristolainen are best served in sheltered minutes at this point in their careers.
David Jiricek, meanwhile, is still completely unproven, even if the Flyers organization seems high on him. He has always struggled when called up to the NHL level, and until he takes a concrete step forward, he will always be regarded as one of the more overrated prospects in the league in my eyes. Simon Benoit, who they acquired in the trade that brought Joseph Woll to the team, is outright one of the worst defensemen in the league. For the Devils’ sake, I hope he gets played often.
Though the Flyers, too, have a legitimate #1 defenseman, they have a hole next to him, and their second-pair caliber players either need to develop more (Drysdale) or provide some semblance of offensive value (York). Their third-pair defensemen are all defense, so there’s going to be a ton of pressure on Sanheim and Drysdale to carry the bulk of puck-moving throughout their games.
Dougie Hamilton, for all the flak he got last season, had an excellent season and is the closest thing the Devils have to a #1 defenseman at this point in time. His +13.4 xGAR ranked 20th in the NHL in 2025-26, and he astoundingly put up strong positives on both ends of the ice. Offensively, his +9.4 xGAR ranked 20th. Defensively, his +5.9 xGAR ranked 23rd. That’s right — statistically speaking, Dougie Hamilton was the 23rd-best defensive defenseman in the league last season. Watching the games should have certainly given you that impression, too, as he took tangible leaps forward in his own end. He was far more positionally sound and was trusted in the second-heaviest defensive deployment on the team for the bulk of the season. When handed his typical, favorable deployment, he produced to a 60-plus-point pace and had excellent offensive outputs. I still regard Hamilton as a legitimate first-pair defenseman, even if he’s more of a #2 than a #1, and Brad Shaw has turned him into a two-way stud. I’d bet he is able to keep it up.
Their other $9 million AAV defenseman, Luke Hughes, has been poised for a true breakout for a number of years now, with stellar microstatistics that paint the picture of a player who does a ton of stuff with the puck on his stick but hasn’t quite put it all together yet. He’s having a (relatively) normal off-season, though, which should help him iron out some of those kinks and should set him up for a big year. For much of the 2025-26 campaign, Hughes was a bit lost defensively, ultimately ending the year with a -3.2 defensive xGAR, but there’s reason to believe he can be a neutral zone stalwart given his mobility. There’s no denying the 22-year-old has a ton of talent; perhaps this is the season he puts it all together and blossoms into a #1. For now, though, he’s more of a second-pair caliber player.
Past those two, things get a bit bleaker in terms of moving the puck. Brett Pesce is capable in that regard, though he is more defensively oriented, leading the Devils’ defensemen in defensive xGAR/60 last season while showing slightly positive offensive numbers to boot. Brenden Dillon had a resurgent year, to be sure, with slightly positive value on both sides of the ice (!!), but it seems like a bit of an outlier campaign given his aging curve.
Johnathan Kovacevic had a poor return from his ACL injury, but I would be remiss not to mention that his recovery was supposed to be a long one — expecting him to contribute as he did in 2024-25 would have been silly. If he’s healthy, though, there is reason to believe he can bounce back to being one of the better defensive defensemen in the league once more. The same goes for Jonas Siegenthaler, who wasn’t injured but had a supremely down season. If Kovacevic rebounds, I feel as though Siegenthaler will follow suit — those two being paired up on the third pair as they were two seasons ago could, in theory, serve New Jersey well. Of course, that requires them to bounce back.
Declan Chisholm and Vladislav Kolyachonok were two excellent additions by Sunny Mehta and company. Chisholm, who I still have a hard time believing will be a seventh defenseman given his $1.6 million salary, has been a perfectly capable third-pair defenseman for the bulk of his career. He’s a puck retrieval wizard, and typically turns those retrievals into zone exits. That’s something that the Devils desperately need more of in their game. Kolyachonok, meanwhile, has consistently put up sound on-ice numbers on both ends of the ice in every instance he was given NHL minutes. He’s the likelier bet to be that 7D for New Jersey, as he should be.
The Devils lack a true #1 defenseman at this point in time (barring a return to 2022-23 form from Hamilton or a major leap forward from Hughes). That said, they do have four legitimate second-pair defensemen in Hughes, Pesce, Siegenthaler, and Kovacevic (assuming health doesn’t impede them again), and they do have solid depth to boot. It’s a defense corps that could be a lot better than their ranking on this list currently is, but the stars do have to align a bit first.
The Capitals have the best defenseman on this list so far in Jakob Chychrun, who not only scored 26 goals in 2025-26 but actually ended up as handily the best offensive defenseman in the league in terms of xGAR (+24.4). He does have his defensive deficiencies, though (-1.3 xGAR), but it simply doesn’t matter given how versatile he is while his team is on the attack. There’s a real argument for the now-28-year-old to be considered a fringe top-10 defenseman in the league.
Past him, they suffer from the same problem that the Flyers have, in that the rest of their group is made up more of second- and third-pair blueliners.
Statistically, Rasmus Sandin graded out as their second-best defenseman last season, though he is slated to miss significant time while recovering from an ACL tear he suffered in April. It’s likely that this season ends up being a complete wash for him. Matt Roy had a bit of a down season in 2025-26 — shockingly, his only positive value in terms of xGAR came by virtue of his penalty differential — but he has proven in the past to be able to handle second-pair minutes with strong on-ice impacts and should be expected to do so in 2026-27.
Martin Fehervary is in the same boat as Roy, with a net-zero impact on the ice outside of his penalty differential. When everything is clicking, though, he has proven to be a capable second-pair defenseman.
The Capitals do have another potential weapon in Cole Hutson, who proved in his brief time at the NHL level last season that he can hang, at least offensively speaking. He’s still technically a rookie and has several names ahead of him in the depth chart, but I would be shocked if he didn’t absolutely crush his sheltered, third-pair, PP2 minutes. He’s going to be dynamic at the NHL level at some point, and even if he isn’t a top-pair guy for another couple of seasons, he will be in due time.
Washington also has Timothy Liljegren, who only played four games last season and should be expected to play bottom-four minutes for them now. They acquired Justin Holl to be their seventh defenseman, and signed Vincent Desharnais to presumably anchor the third pair next to Hutson. Desharnais was shockingly good on the defensive side of the puck for San Jose last season (+6.2 xGAR), so I think he can absolutely provide that same value while in a more favorable system and in a more sheltered role.
Chychrun is the best defender to appear on this list so far, but the reality is that the Capitals have a bunch of #3-#6 defensemen behind him. There’s really no one who can reliably play next to him for a full season with first-pair results.
Astoundingly, Matthew Schaefer was the third-best defenseman in the entire league in terms of total xGAR in 2025-26 (+24.8), with the bulk of his impact coming from the offensive side of the puck (+20.7). He still has a way to go on the defensive side of the puck, but he is still 18 years of age, and thus, that should be of absolutely no concern whatsoever. He’s a bona fide #1, and a high-end one at that. For a player of his age to step into that role and perform as he did is anomalous — there’s a reason some have already given him the “generational” title (though I think it’s likely a bit early for that).
Adam Pelech looked like a low-end #2 defenseman last season, mostly providing the defensive value that his counterpart (Tony DeAngelo) lacked. His +5.9 defensive xGAR was tied for 23rd in the league with Dougie Hamilton, and Pelech was a slight positive offensively as well. He’s the type of defenseman every team needs on their second pair — Pelech deserves his flowers.
Past those two, though, things drop off pretty significantly. Scott Mayfield is a perfectly fine second-pair defensive defenseman, but he’s such a black hole offensively (-5.4 xGAR) that it’s just about a wash in terms of his on-ice impact. Tony DeAngelo gets treated like a top-four defenseman in terms of his deployment, but he had putrid on-ice results for the vast majority of the season and should be stapled to a defensive stalwart in extremely sheltered minutes at this point in his career. He was given a two-year, $4.5 million AAV extension, though, so it seems likely that those two will make up their second pair.
Ryan Pulock and Alexander Romanov are, outright, two of the worst defensemen in the league at this point. Romanov’s physicality has given some the idea that he’s a capable of playing premier minutes, but the reality is that he has consistently been walloped in his minutes. Almost impressively, he posted a -5.8 xGAR in just 17 games, with a league-worst xGAR/60. Pulock has been competent in the past, but he had an atrocious 2025-26, with a -9.6 xGAR on the season reflective of having little value on either side of the ice despite playing next to Schaefer. Isaiah George is a harmless 7D.
All told, the Islanders’ top pair is doing a lot of heavy lifting here. Past them, their defense corps needs a lot of work. Really, they should be committing to rebuilding and adding assets given how bleak it is in the bottom two pairs, but in the meantime it seems as though they’re content to wait for Kashawn Aitcheson and Malte Gustafsson to hit while forcing a try at playoff contention by spending big on veterans with higher perceived value than actual value.
The Carolina Hurricanes have inarguably the most balanced defense corps of any team in the Metropolitan Division.
Jaccob Slavin is a true first-pair defenseman, even if he is a tad overrated at this point in his career. There’s no denying his defensive capabilities, with his defensive xGAR ranking ninth in all of the NHL, but he was a bit of an offensive black hole this past season and isn’t getting any younger. In his best games, he certainly chips in offensively and has the capabilities to reach the lofty perception of being a top-15 defenseman in the league, but I think his reputation is doing more heavy lifting than his actual play.
K’Andre Miller, meanwhile, assumed #1 duties for the Hurricanes through the playoffs, and for good reason. He was their best two-way defenseman in the postseason, and arguably their best all-around defender during the regular season to boot. He was one of three defensemen on the team to have a positive impact on both sides of the ice, with a +3.9 offensive xGAR and a top-20 finish in defensive xGAR as well (+6.8). He’s a fringe top-pair caliber defenseman in my eyes, and it was only his first season with the team. It stands to reason that, with more time to acclimate to the Hurricanes’ demanding system, he can be even better in 2026-27. He’s only 26, after all.
Sean Walker and Shayne Gostisbehere made up the single best second-pair in the entire NHL last season. Gostisbehere was an offensive dynamo, with his +8.6 offensive xGAR handily ranking first on the team and ranking 24th in the entire league. His game will age well, too, considering that he’s not all that physical, so there are no concerns of him having a down year. He played to the tune of nearly a point per game in 2025-26, with 50 points in 55 games, and while I wouldn’t expect that per-game pace again, I wouldn’t be surprised to see him surpass the 60 point threshold once more if he stays healthy. Walker, meanwhile, was an incredible two-way asset for Carolina, leading them in total xGAR (+11.0) while sporting the 21st-best defensive impact (+6.5) and a strong +4.7 offensive xGAR. He, too, should age well relative to the typical age curve, so I would expect another strong season from the perennially underrated defenseman.
Joel Nystrom has been a great story, as a 219th-overall-pick-turned-capable-NHLer. He was the third Hurricane defenseman to put up positive impacts on both sides of the ice, sporting an astounding +4.3 xGAR in just 38 games. That had him pacing for an xGAR of +9.3 for the season, which would have been fourth-best on the team (and above Slavin). Nystrom did put those numbers up while in a third-pair role, but his two-way viability in that context is still excellent. He was rewarded with a four-year, $1.225 million AAV extension, which I see as a bargain for what he is. Expect him to be a mainstay on the third pair for them, and a great one at that. Jalen Chatfield will likely make up the other half of their third pair despite also being a righty, and he had a down year compared to the norm, with an all-position team-worst -4.1 xGAR on the season. It was an anomalously poor performance, though, so expecting a rebound is prudent.
In terms of depth, the Hurricanes added Juuso Valimaki as a 7D, taking into account the likelihood that Alexander Nikishin (who remains without a contract) gets traded. Valimaki’s strengths lie more on the offensive side of things, but as a fringe NHLer, there’s not really much more you can ask of him.
All in all, it’s the Hurricanes’ defensive depth that finds them this high on the list. They have a bona fide top-pair defenseman in Slavin, three fringe first-pair blueliners in Miller, Gostisbehere, and Walker, an excellent third-pair defender in Nystrom, a bounce-back candidate in Chatfield, and a solid 7D to boot. There’s nothing not to like, especially looking at what the rearguards’ contracts look like. Eric Tulsky has done a phenomenal job with this team.
The Blue Jackets are benefiting here from having a perennial top-five defenseman in the league and reigning Norris Trophy winner Zach Werenski, who deserved the award he was given. His +26.6 xGAR was the best output in the league, with positive across-the-board impacts being buoyed by an other-worldly offensive xGAR of +21.5. He’s the full package, and there’s no reason to suggest that he will be anything but another point-per-game-plus Norris candidate in 2026-27.
Behind him, Denton Mateychuk had a quietly superb sophomore season on the second pair, finishing in the top-10 of total xGAR among defenders in the entire National Hockey League. Given his trajectory so far, it’s certainly possible that he reaches top-pair caliber in 2026-27. He’s played on his off-hand before, too, so playing next to Werenski and getting premier minutes seems like it’s in the cards.
Ex-Devil Damon Severson was fantastic for Columbus this past season as well, with New Jersey sorely missing the type of game he brings to the table at this point in time. He was narrowly behind Mateychuk in the league-wide standings, with his +17.2 xGAR ranking 14th in the league. Perhaps even more baffling was that he ranked in the top-five in defensive xGAR, totaling +8.9 on the campaign. Severson has long been a defenseman who thrives against bottom-four competition and can absolutely dominate those minutes. Assuming he’s in that very same role this campaign, he should be expected to dominate those minutes once again.
Ivan Provorov might be vastly overpaid for the player he is, but he still brings positive two-way value to the table. In a bottom-four role, he has the capability to win his minutes, primarily through some underrated offensive tools. He blocks a ton of shots, gets involved along the boards, and can still chip in 25-plus points. He’s certainly not an $8.5 million defenseman, but he’s fine enough in a bottom-four capacity. Dante Fabbro, meanwhile, is a capable offense-first third-pair defenseman who gets paid a reasonable enough amount for what he is. His +1.7 xGAR on the year was equally due to his offensive impact (+1.4) and penalty impact (+1.1), but he still needs to improve on the defensive side of the puck.
While they do have a strong top five, their remaining defensemen are somewhat putrid. Jake Christiansen is a slight net negative on both sides of the puck, with an equal -0.7 xGAR both offensively and defensively in 40 games. Erik Gudbranson, meanwhile, is in the Romanov category of “completely unplayable.” He only logged 37 games in 2025-26, but had an astoundingly poor -11.2 xGAR in those games. He’s best served riding pine, especially given his nearly-buryable salary of $1.75 million.
The reality is, though, that the Blue Jackets’ defense corps, on the whole, is quite strong. Headlined by a top-five defenseman in the NHL in Werenski, they also have a could-be first-pair talent in Mateychuk, one of the best soft-minute defensemen in the league in Severson, and a solid #4 in Provorov. Fabbro will be the best player on their third pair (and that’s fine), but they would be smart to get a cheap, net-positive defenseman to put alongside him and try and find a suitor for Gudbranson.
The New York Rangers completely redid their defensive corps this summer, and it has genuinely worked out well on paper.
Adam Fox remains the most under-appreciated defenseman in the league, with a real argument that he’s the second- or third-best blueliner in the game (depending on how you view Cale Makar’s dependence on Nathan MacKinnon). Of any defenseman with at least 20 games played, Fox ranked first in total xGAR/60, with arguably the most absurd with-or-without-you numbers in all of hockey. The reality is, Fox transforms the Rangers lineup from the bottom up and makes fourth-line players perform like second-line players. One day, he’ll regain the respect he deserves. For now, he’ll be appreciated a lot more by those in the analytics community than layman watchers.
I’m not sure who he’ll spend time with between Vladislav Gavrikov and Marcus Pettersson, but my guess is that he remains with Gavrikov like he did for most of 2025-26. The now-30-year-old Gavrikov is still a top-four defenseman, with affinities leaning more toward the offensive side of the puck last campaign. His $7 million AAV contract is a bit steep for what he is, but at his best, he is a two-way, top-four defenseman who can eat big minutes and win them.
That would leave Sean Durzi and Pettersson as the second pair, and that should immediately become one of the top middle pairings in the NHL. Durzi has been a premier offensive defenseman in the past, though he was more average than he ever has been last season. He’s still a defensive liability, but can likely rekindle some of that juice while playing alongside a defensive stalwart in Pettersson. Pettersson, who the rangers acquired for a 2030 first-round pick, is a complete black hole offensively but put up some of the best defensive numbers in the league in his last campaign. His +9.2 defensive xGAR ranked fourth in the NHL, which he did while logging big minutes on the worst team in hockey. If he’s playing on the second pair, it stands to reason that he’ll be able to suffocate the opposition entirely and allow Durzi to open up a bit more.
Braden Schneider is in the same ilk as Gudbranson and Romanov, in that he has sported atrocious underlying numbers while getting more respect than is deserved by virtue of his physicality. His -8.6 xGAR was sixth-worst in the NHL in 2025-26, though he was thrust into a role he has never really been prepared for. With third-pair minutes, he could turn into a useful player. Matthew Robertson, meanwhile, has consistently put up sound two-way numbers in a sheltered role, with his +6.0 xGAR being second-best on the Rangers’ blue line in 2025-26. Given his salary, I wouldn’t be surprised if he was used as a 7D, but that shouldn’t be the case whatsoever. Instead, they should probably bench Urho Vaakanainen, who has put up solid defensive numbers but isn’t apt offensively by any means.
Still, the Rangers are poised to have a dangerous top-four and an improved bottom-pair. They constructed a high-end second pair (on paper) through the trade market, and by moving their other defensemen down in the lineup, should afford them better opportunity to improve their impacts. It’s a very, very good group of defensemen.
Tomorrow’s Metropolitan Division ranking will be the last one, where I’ll be covering each team’s goaltending! Stay tuned.
For those wondering why I’m using xGAR for defensemen while I used GAR for forwards, it’s because defensemen have the puck on their stick a lot less than forwards do. Actual GAR uses actual goals/results, which are directly influenced more by forwards than by defensemen. xGAR, meanwhile, uses expected goals/results.
Comments
Nothing yet. Say the first thing.
Sign in to join the conversation.