Trevor Daley: Next Elite NHL Defensemen?
By Jordan Dix
We are now a few weeks into the season and it has been a mixed bag so far for the Dallas Stars. The offense is what everyone thought it would be, almost unstoppable. They are scoring at a rate of 3.44 goals per game which is good for third best in the NHL. The defense on the other hand, has struggled. While they are third best in the NHL in scoring, the Stars are also third worst in the NHL in giving up goals. So why talk about a member of the defensive core after the Stars have given up 32 goals in just 9 games? Because he is that good.
Trevor Daley has been a Dallas Star since he entered the league during the 2003-2004 season. He’s never scored more than 27 points in a season. Until last year, he would rarely be found on the top-pairing defensively. His highest average time-on-ice in a season before last year was just 22:29, a pretty modest amount. He’s 31 years old, which is pretty late in a career for a player to start turning heads. But that is exactly what Trevor Daley is doing in Dallas. Everyone in Texas has started to take notice, and Daley is on the verge of breaking out and having the entire league take notice pretty soon.
I know what you’re thinking, it has been nine games. However it really has been so much more than that. This isn’t just a “this season” level of play we are seeing from Daley. In fact, he has been one of the most dominant NHL defensemen since March of this year. His time on the ice took a serious jump with about 20 games left in the regular season as the Stars were pushing for the playoff spot they so desperately needed. Stars fans saw a man who night after night would empty the tank in order to get this team into the playoffs. On April 9th against the Columbus Blue Jackets, Daley took a shot directly in the face. Two days later against the St. Louis Blues, with the playoffs on the line, Daley would log over 28 minutes of ice time and score a breakaway goal to send the Stars to their first playoff berth in five years. That is the type of player he has become.
Since March, Daley has played in 37 games for the Stars. He has scored 27 points in that time span while logging an average of 24:17 minutes of ice time per game. That point production matches his career high for an 82 game season. Let’s look how he stacks up against the league’s best in that time frame.
[table id=Daley1 /]
So that’s matched up against arguably the best defensemen in the league in Drew Doughty and the three Norris finalists from the previous season. And even though the first job for a defensemen is to defend, Daley’s important point production is right there with the very best in the league, despite playing significantly less time than both Duncan Keith and Drew Doughty. Not only was Daley productive, but the entire team was productive when he was on the ice. The Stars scored 3.73 goals per 60 minutes with Daley on the ice since March, only 4 players are better than him in that category and one of them is Alex Goligoski. Let’s look at another table and expand the amount of players to include even more elite NHL defensemen.
[table id=Daley2 /]
As you can see, relative to his offensive zone start percentage, Daley’s points per 60 minutes of play is out of this world. To start just under 53% of your shifts outside the offensive zone and put up that kind of production as a defensemen is incredibly impressive. Not only that, but before this young season’s outburst of four powerplay goals (which is tied for the league-lead this year) he has done almost all of his production while the teams were at even strength on the ice. Daley’s points per 60 minutes of play at even strength is at 1.70, which leads the entire NHL since March 1st.
Defensively, it is more of the same. I think we can all agree that a list of the top defensemen in the NHL would probably include Drew Doughty, Duncan Keith, Zdeno Chara, Shea Weber, Ryan Suter, P.K. Subban, Alex Pietrangelo, Ryan McDonagh, Mark-Edward Vlasic and Erik Karlsson. You ask for the best defensemen in the NHL and 95% of the time one of those names are going to be given to you. Of those players, only Shea Weber played against tougher competition relative to their corsi % than Trevor Daley since the month of March. Here is a more defensive table, let’s see how Daley stacks up again.
[table id=Daley3 /]
So what does it all mean?
It means since Lindy Ruff took over in Dallas, something with Trevor Daley has changed. Ruff has demanded more out of Daley and has given him the freedom to expand his game to the next level. One of Daley’s best assets is his speed. Ruff simply told him to use it more often to not only jump into the offense but to get himself out of defensive jams as well. And now that Trevor Daley is becoming a mainstay on the top power play unit, there is no telling how much production we will see out of him. His current pace would shatter his career high in both goals and total points. Aside from the production, Daley also consistently plays against the top players of opposing teams and that is something that is not likely to change.
I know it is early. The fact of the matter is, these statistics are from a small sample size that equates to almost half of an NHL season. However, that sample size is large enough to show that Trevor Daley’s recent play isn’t a fluke, but a trend. I’m not saying Daley will win the Norris this season, but by the end of the season the rest of the NHL will see that Trevor Daley is approaching top-10 status for NHL defensemen.
Agree? Disagree? Start the discussion below and thank you for reading.