A Rod Langway Award update

Here's a statistical look, based on the method used here, at who the best defensive defencemen in the NHL have been this season.

Players have to be among the top 90 blueliners in even strength ice time and have played at least two minutes on the penalty kill per game:

	NAME	TM	QUAL COMP	5-on-5 GAON/60	4-on-5 GAON/60
1	HENRIK TALLINDER	BUF	0.14	1.65	4.55
2	NICKLAS LIDSTROM	DET	0.16	1.58	4.96
3	ADAM FOOTE	CBJ	0.15	2.30	3.80
4	CHRIS PRONGER	ANA	0.11	1.83	4.61
5	DEREK MORRIS	PHX	0.19	2.03	5.57
6	JAN HEJDA	CBJ	0.14	2.30	4.51
7	SEAN O'DONNELL	ANA	0.12	1.55	5.64
8	KEITH BALLARD	PHX	0.19	2.19	5.43
9	TONI LYDMAN	BUF	0.12	1.94	5.26
10	BRENDAN WITT	NYI	0.11	2.32	4.23
11	DENNIS WIDEMAN	BOS	0.02	1.84	4.21
12	WILLIE MITCHELL	VAN	0.15	1.88	6.66
13	CHRISTIAN EHRHOFF	S.J	0.04	2.12	4.23
14	GREG DE VRIES	NSH	0.11	2.19	5.08
15	DANIEL GIRARDI	NYR	0.04	2.30	3.81
16	BRENT BURNS	MIN	0.06	2.18	4.81
17	KIM JOHNSSON	MIN	0.11	2.60	4.21
18	ZDENO CHARA	BOS	0.08	2.31	4.92
19	NICK SCHULTZ	MIN	0.15	2.45	5.51
20	MARC-EDOUARD VLASIC	S.J	0.02	1.97	4.92

Some familiar names at the top end, that's for sure. I'd actually be interested to see other bloggers put together their own lists of top defensive defenders this season, as it can be a very difficult thing to nail down.

Both Columbus and Phoenix have had much better defensive performances this season, led by their leading blueliners, while the Wild always have leaders in this thing.

The worst ranked players (out of the 77 who meet the ice time thresholds) are: Brad Stuart, Tom Poti, Ryan Whitney, Dion Phaneuf, Roman Hamrlik, Garnet Exelby, Jaroslav Modry, Andrej Meszaros, Tim Gleason and Francois Beauchemin.
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