At forward, the difference between average NHL players, minor league players, and even elite college players may be far less significant than the average fan or DFS player realizes. The same is true for defensemen.
Just because a guy isn’t an elite talent doesn’t mean that he can’t provide DFS value, especially if he’s recently experienced an increase in opportunity.
As DFS pricing often lags behind opportunity, it makes sense that defensemen in recently expanded roles would have value. But how do we identify these players and find an edge?
6 Defensemen, But Who Actually Sees the Ice?
Defensive pairings (found on our lines page) are units made up of two defensemen who play together when their team is at even strength. They’re the forward equivalent of the three-player ‘lines’ at forward. Defensive pairings don’t necessarily play together all game, although it is possible that they could be on the same power play unit.
Identifying which defensive pairing (one, two, or three) a player is on can go a long way toward determining how much Time On Ice (TOI) he is likely to receive. More TOI is likely to lead to more shots and eventually more goals.
The following chart filters TOI by defensive pairings using our Trends tool. The heat map shows the percentages of defensive pairings that fall under each TOI quintile. In this case, the 100th percentile represents the highest average TOI relative to other players.
It is not surprising that this chart looks similar to the one for forwards. Much like the majority of first-line forwards, most first-pairing defensemen (60.90 percent) are in the highest quintile for TOI over the past month (TOI-Month).
It should be noted that Offensive Defensemen and some other types of players who see less TOI are still viable, but typically we should seek out players in the highest quintile of TOI-Month.
As we can see, far more top-four (pairing 1-2) defensemen are in the upper quintiles than the bottom. On average, third-pairing defensemen see the ice far less often.
We see the same general trends when we look only at defensemen who see time on the power play (PP), which top-four defensemen more frequently do:
More often than not, top-pairing defensemen on the PP can expect to find themselves in the top quintile for TOI-month. In contrast, third-pairing defensemen on the PP most frequently find themselves in the bottom quintiles. (Also, the sample of PP third-pairing defensemen is small: 1,881 to 4,969 for first-pairing defensemen.)
For the remainder of this study, only PP defensemen will be included in the samples.
Punt Plays with High TOI
Now that we see how role and TOI are correlated, we can dive into what an expanded role means in terms of DFS for defensemen.
Our TOI filter is based on the fantasy year (rolling 365 days). We can leverage this long-term information by also screening for short-term increases in TOI-Month. Let’s look for defensemen who are no higher than $4,000 DK and who are in the top quintile in short-term TOI but lower than that in long-term TOI:
Unsurprisingly, when cheap defensemen see a bump in TOI up to the top quintile of TOI-Month, they on average provide considerable value (per Plus/Minus). Even though the Plus/Minus values are low, these numbers are still significant given that DraftKings scoring for NHL is low in comparison to other sports.
Nevertheless, even though the Consistency Ratings of these trends are elevated relative to what we normally see from defensemen, they are not as high as the Consistency Ratings we see in similar trends for forwards. This could be one more reason to pay up for defensemen.
Other Expanded Roles
Do we find short-term value with other combinations of salary and long-term TOI at defensemen?
Relatively few defensemen qualify for this study, but we again see a pocket of players priced at $4,100 to $5,000 who provide some value when receiving a moderate bump in TOI.
Optimal Punt Range With Defensemen in Expanded Roles
Let’s circle back to punt plays and screen for players in a slightly tighter range. The most favorable trend is for defensemen in the 85th percentile for TOI-Month but the 65th to 80th percentiles for long-term TOI:
The count is small — since guys already receiving respectable TOI are rarely cheap anyway, much less after they’ve received a short-term bump in action — but this trend provides a massive edge in salary-based production and Consistency.
Conclusion
Top-pairing defensemen on the power play typically see the most TOI in the short term. Very few third-pairing defensemen see top-tier TOI even if they are on the power play. Second-pairing defensemen tend to fall somewhere in the middle.
Targeting defensemen with recently expanded roles can provide value, especially when they’re still cheap. However, DK forwards tend to provide more value for ‘expanded TOI trends’ than defensemen.
