By Gerard Devine -
I'm gonna take a look at which defencemen have been the most buried this year. By buried, I mean the ones who've had the highest ratio of defensive zone starts vs offensive zone starts. Obviously, when you're starting in the defensive zone a lot, it means:
-Here are the top-10 most-buried defencemen in the league so far this year:
Wild fans have been crying-out for a high quality blueline for years. Well, in Suter, Brodin, Spurgeon and Scandella, they've got one. The most exicting thing is that 3 of those 4 are yet to reach their 24th Birthday and have their best years still ahead of them.
The development of Scandella is why fans should be patient with Brodin and Dumba. Both of those guys have struggled somewhat this year. Dumba has looked very uncomfortable at times and has been prone to mental mistakes, while Brodin has found it difficult to emulate his amazing defensive play from last season. The path to becoming a solid top-4 defenceman in the NHL is a long and rocky one. Scandella is 23 and has only now found his feet. Dumba and Brodin are 19 and 20 retrospectively and will have a lot of ups and downs on their way to reaching their full potential, so fans need to be patient and not expect them to figure it out right away.
In short, this Thanksgiving, I'm thankful for our young defensive core that is gonna give opposing teams headaches for years to come.
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