The Minnesota Wild chose to shuffle defensive pairings that had seemingly been working up until very recently. The result was a 6-4 win over the Ottawa Senators; 4 conceded goals indicating the changes were nowhere near perfect.
Whatever is said though, the Minnesota Wild still won the game and the defensive pairings gave scoring contributions on that result.
Not the least a two-goal night from Matt Dumba; one at even-strength, the other on the power-play, thus not really influenced by the change in partner.
Typically this season, we’ve seen Matt Dumba and Ryan Suter paired together in a pairing that is by some measures near-elite.
Jared Spurgeon, possibly the most underrated defenseman in the Minnesota Wild line-up has typically been paired with Jonas Brodin as the go-to shutdown pairing.
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Finally, Greg Pateryn is typically lined up with Nick Seeler providing a nice blend of experience and youth (at least in Minnesota terms) on the third pair.
Nate Prosser has watched on from the press-box as the seventh defenseman for the year so far.
Starting with Jonas Brodin; his Corsi For percentage with his most regular partner, Jared Spurgeon is a decent 51.52%. On the night with his new partner, Matt Dumba; it was a dominant 64.52%.
Obviously, this is skewed by a one-game sample size versus a multi-game sample size with Spurgeon and Brodin’s deployment typically being a shut-down role, but it’s still a significant difference.
Based on that sort of Corsi For percentage, it’s no surprise that Matt Dumba scored twice. Even ignoring the power-play goal, his hitting the back of the net should’ve been somewhat expected based on that sort of dominance.
Ryan Suter, by comparison saw limited impact to his Corsi For percentage with Spurgeon; a 48.39% not being all that different to his average with Dumba of 49.8%.
Based on a little bit of common sense, a little bit on the match-ups they faced and a little on the fact that the Ottawa Senators hardly boast elite players at this stage, it’s fair to say that Ryan Suter is the leader in the Suter-Dumba pairing, whilst Jonas Brodin has proven to be a positive impacting player on his partner.
Maybe there’s something to be said for Brodin being underated and not just Spurgeon, in terms of Minnesota Wild defensemen!
Most impressive in a game where 4 goals were scored by the opposing team was that no one Minnesota Wild defenseman managed to be on the ice for more than 1 goal. I guess that’s a trend you wouldn’t mind continued.
Statistics courtesy of Natural Stat Trick.