Projecting Defensemen

With the first quarter of the season completed, a lot of defensemen are looking like they can put up some monster years. Below are the players listed in terms of Goals, Assists, and Points, and it includes previous years for comparision. As you will notice, the spreadsheet's not pretty, but it gets the job done.



Goals:

Season	30+ goals	20+ goals	15+ goals
2005-2006		Mathieu Schneider (21)	Bryan McCabe (19)
		Dion Phaneuf (20)	Lubomir Visnovsky (17)
			Nicklas Lidstrom (16)
			Philippe Boucher (16)
			Zdeno Chara (16)
			Dan Boyle (15)
			Paul Mara (15)
			Marc-Andre Bergeron (15)
2006-2007		Sheldon Souray (26)	Philippe Boucher (19)
		Dan Boyle (20)	Lubomir Visnovsky (18)
			Dion Phaneuf (17)
			Shea Weber (17)
			Scott Niedermayer (15)
			Bryan McCabe (15)
			Filip Kuba (15)
2007-2008			Dustin Byfuglien (19)
			Mike Green (18)
			Dion Phaneuf (17)
			Zdeno Chara (17)
			Andrei Markov (16)
			Brent Burns (15)
			Jay Bouwmeester (15)
2008-2009	Mike Green (31)	Sheldon Souray (23)	Zdeno Chara (19)
		Shea Weber (23)	Nicklas Lidstrom (16)
			Dan Boyle (16)
			Mark Streit (16)
			Anton Babchuk (16)
			Jay Bouwmeester (15)
			Bryan McCabe (15)
			Dustin Byfuglien (15)
2009-2010			Mike Green (19)
			Dustin Byfuglien (17)
			Drew Doughty (16)
			Shea Weber (16)
			Dan Boyle (15)
			Lubomir Visnovsky (15)
2010-2011		Dustin Byfuglien (20)	Lubomir Visnovsky (18)
			Brent Burns (17)
			Nicklas Lidstrom (16)
			Shea Weber (16)
2011-2012 (proj)	Jason Garrison (31)	Nicklas Lidstrom (25)	Brent Burns (17)
		Niklas Kronwall (25)	Ian White (16)
		Oliver Ekman-Larsson (21)	Dustin Byfuglien (16)
		Ryan Suter (20)	Sheldon Souray (16)
			Jordan Leopold (16)
			Sami Salo (16)
			Kris Russell (16)
			Jack Johnson (15)
			Steve Montador (15)

What does this tell us? We could have our second 30+ goal scorer who's a defenseman since the lockout. This could also be the first time we have four 20+ goal scorers and nine 15+ goal scorers. You can look at the table and recognize some familiar names up there that have charted before. This could be the shift that many of us might be missing with defensemen scoring more goals than ever and creating another weapon on the ice for many teams.

Assists:

Season	60+ Assists	50+ Assists	45+ Assists
2005-2006	Nicklas Lidstrom (64)	Sergei Zubov (58)	Bryan McCabe (49)
		Tomas Kaberle (58)	Sergei Gonchar (46)
		Lubomir Visnovsky (50)
		Scott Niedermayer (50)
2006-2007		Scott Niedermayer (54)	Nicklas Lidstrom (49)
		Sergei Gonchar (54)	Tomas Kaberle (47)
			Brian Rafalski (47)
			Chris Pronger (46)
			Ryan Whitney (45)
2007-2008	Nicklas Lidstrom (60)	Brian Campbell (54)	Mark Streit (49)
		Sergei Gonchar (53)	Tomas Kaberle (45)
2008-2009		Andrei Markov (52)	Brian Rafalski (49)
			Scott Niedermayer (45)
			Brian Campbell (45)
			Niklas Kronwall (45)
2009-2010		Mike Green (57)	Chris Pronger (45)
		Duncan Keith (55)
2010-2011		Lubomir Visnovsky (50)	Keith Yandle (48)
			Nicklas Lidstrom (46)
2011-2012 (proj)	Erik Karlsson (66)	Marc-Andre Bergeron (57)	Zdeno Chara (49)
	Brian Campbell (66)	Kris Letang (56)	Nick Leddy (48)
		Dmitry Kulikov (55)	Shea Weber (47)
		Dion Phaneuf (52)	Sergei Gonchar (47)
		Alexander Edler (51)	Kimmo Timonen (47)
			Keith Yandle (45)

The only guy that's hit 60+ assists is Nick Lidstrom, but this year we could have a pair of them and neither being Nick Lidstrom. Both Karlsson and Campbell have 17 assists thus far and with more than half coming on the Power Play, they'll have many opportunities to continue putting up assists at their current pace. We could also have five defensemen put up 50+ assists, with Letang's suspension, and Kulikov missing one game, they could potentially put up a few more assists...

Points:

Season	70+ Points	60+ Points	55+ Points
2005-2006	Nicklas Lidstrom (80)	Bryan McCabe (68)	Mathieu Schneider (59)
	Sergei Zubov (71)	Lubomir Visnovsky (67)	Sergei Gonchar (58)
		Tomas Kaberle (67)	Chris Pronger (56)
		Scott Niedermayer (63)
2006-2007		Scott Niedermayer (69)	Ryan Whitney (59)
		Sergei Gonchar (67)	Chris Pronger (59)
		Sheldon Souray (64)	Lubomir Visnovsky (58)
		Dan Boyle (63)	Tomas Kaberle (58)
		Nicklas Lidstrom (62)	Bryan McCabe (57)
			Kimmo Timonen (55)
			Brian Rafalski (55)
2007-2008	Nicklas Lidstrom (70)	Sergei Gonchar (65)	Andrei Markov (58)
		Mark Streit (62)	Mike Green (56)
		Brian Campbell (62)	Brian Rafalski (55)
		Dion Phaneuf (60)
2008-2009	Mike Green (73)	Andrei Markov (64)	Nicklas Lidstrom (59)
			Scott Niedermayer (59)
			Brian Rafalski (59)
			Dan Boyle (57)
			Mark Streit (56)
2009-2010	Mike Green (76)	Duncan Keith (69)	Drew Doughty (59)
			Dan Boyle (58)
			Chris Pronger (55)
2010-2011		Lubomir Visnovsky (68)	Keith Yandle (59)
		Nicklas Lidstrom (62)
2011-2012 (proj)	Brian Campbell (74)	Marc-Andre Bergeron (69)	Shea Weber (59)
	Erik Karlsson (70)	Nicklas Lidstrom (66)	Ryan Suter (59)
		Kris Letang (63)	Dmitry Kulikov (59)
		Alexander Edler (62)	Nick Leddy (56)
		Zdeno Chara (62)	Dustin Byfuglien (55)
		Dion Phaneuf (60)	Sergei Gonchar (55)

Brian Campbell and Erik Karlsson, in addition to breaking 60 assists, could also break 70 points. Campbell is more likely than Karlsson based on Campbell's two goals to Karlsson's one. Still, there's going to be a lot of defensemen putting up points and getting one of those projected to put up mass points is well worth it.