Interesting Stats of Top NHL Defensemen

Many NHL teams are now struggling with the salary cap.  It can be clearly seen that defensemen play a huge role on a Stanley Cup winning team.  For example, the 2008-2009 Stanley Cup winners, the Pittsburgh Penguins, had an excellent group of defensemen, both young and veteran, leading the way to their third Stanley Cup.

While Sergei Gonchar and Ryan Whitney were injured, young players like Alex Goligoski and Kris Letang helped steady the team until the return of the established veteran defensemen.  With Sergei Gonchar back in the lineup, which coincided with the promotion of Head Coach Dan Bylsma, the Pens were on a mission.  They went on an incredible run to make the playoffs.

That run ended with the Stanley Cup in Sid the Kid's hands, while Nicklas Lidstrom's hands were left empty.  Both of the Cup and of Sid's non-existent handshake.  This made me wonder what exactly defines a great defensemen.  I wanted to know what made some defensemen worth so much money, and if they were worth their current salaries. 

By taking the top two defensemen on each NHL team's depth chart from Yahoo's NHL teams page and then taking their 2008-2009 stats and salaries, I created a table with lots of comparative data.  I then calculated the averages for a certain number of categories in order to compare the individual players' statistics to the averages. 

I measured the categories of games played, points, TOI, +/-, hits, blocked shots, and salary.  The average salary for the 60 defensemen chosen was around $3.9 million, which is pretty high compared to the annual salary cap of $56.8 million considering the teams need to employ a full 23-man roster.

Here are the statistics resulting in this data, which were taken from the 2008-2009 NHL season.  The minutes per game (TOI) category was rounding to the nearest 0.25 of a minute for each player in order for easier calculations.  It was not taken into account what year of the contract the players were in.

Player Name	GP	Points	MPG	Plus/Minus	Hits	Blocked Shots	Salary ($)
Scott Niedermayer	82	59	27	-8	68	77	6750000
Ryan Whitney	48	23	23	-14	37	69	4000000
Tobias Enstrom	82	32	23.5	14	29	120	900000
Ron Hainsey	80	39	22.25	-16	60	127	4500000
Zdeno Chara	80	50	26	23	169	123	7500000
Dennis Wideman	79	50	24.5	32	67	135	3250000
Toni Lydman	80	23	21.75	0	165	166	3150000
Craig Rivet	64	24	20.25	4	57	73	3500000
Jay Bouwmeester	82	42	27	-2	115	128	4875000
Robyn Regehr	75	8	21.25	10	122	89	4600000
Joni Pitkanen	71	33	24.75	11	62	125	3500000
Joe Corvo	81	38	24.25	-1	41	89	2750000
Duncan Keith	77	44	25.5	33	40	93	1600000
Brent Seabrook	82	26	23.25	23	224	113	3500000
Kyle Quincey	72	38	21	-5	116	75	525000
Scott  Hannan	81	10	22.25	-21	56	162	4500000
Fedor Tyutin	82	34	23.5	1	103	98	2250000
Rostislav Klesla	34	9	21	2	59	49	1650000
Stephane Robidas	72	26	24.5	10	221	109	1500000
Trevor Daley	75	25	22	2	30	98	2100000
Nicklas Lidstrom	78	59	24.75	31	43	67	7450000
Brian Rafalski	78	59	23.25	17	33	64	6000000
Lubomir Visnovsky	50	31	23	6	27	82	7000000
Sheldon Souray	81	53	24.75	1	82	69	6250000
Keith Ballard	82	34	22.5	14	172	136	2275000
Bryan McCabe	69	39	23	-1	72	92	6150000
Drew Doughty	81	27	23.75	-17	90	114	875000
Sean O'Donnell	82	12	20.5	2	77	85	1250000
Brent Burns	59	27	22.25	-7	58	62	3000000
Kim Johnsson	81	24	24.5	-3	36	142	5250000
Andrei Markov	78	64	24.5	-2	61	111	5750000
Roman Hamrlik	81	33	22	4	104	195	5500000
Shea Weber	81	53	24	1	192	95	4500000
Ryan Suter	82	45	24.25	-16	87	93	3500000
Paul Martin	73	33	24.25	21	40	79	4000000
Johnny Oduya	82	29	20.75	21	50	127	600000
Mark Streit	74	56	25.25	5	114	113	4100000
Brendan Witt	65	9	20.25	-34	142	146	3000000
Daniel Girardi	82	22	21.5	-14	207	82	1500000
Michal Rozsival	76	30	22.5	-7	90	113	7000000
Chris Phillips	82	22	21.75	-14	113	114	3500000
Filip Kuba	71	40	23.25	4	44	111	3000000
Chris Pronger	82	48	27	0	78	122	6250000
Kimmo Timonen	77	43	24.5	19	65	164	8000000
Ed Jovanovski	82	36	22.25	-15	132	112	6500000
Zbynek Michalek	82	27	22.75	-13	69	271	1400000
Sergei Gonchar	25	19	25.25	6	25	38	6000000
Brooks Orpik	79	19	20.25	10	309	152	3750000
Dan Boyle	77	57	22.75	6	51	95	6666667
Rob Blake	73	45	21.25	15	66	114	5000000
Barret Jackman	82	21	23.5	-17	124	145	2500000
Roman Polak	69	15	21.5	-15	110	109	475000
Mattias Ohlund	82	25	23.5	14	109	152	3500000
Andrej Meszaros	52	16	24.25	-4	68	98	2500000
Tomas Kaberle	57	31	23.5	-8	29	79	4250000
F. Beauchemin	20	5	25	-3	26	25	1650000
Willie Mitchell	82	23	23	29	82	125	3500000
Kevin Bieksa	72	43	23.5	-4	119	60	4250000
Mike Green	68	73	25.75	24	86	110	6000000
Tom Poti	52	13	21.25	3	31	97	3500000
AVERAGE	72.66	33.21	23.2625	2.6166	89.23	107.966	3900694