LA Kings: Analyzing Drew Doughty’s Norris Trophy Case
Could LA Kings defenseman Drew Doughty win his second Norris Trophy this season?
Entering the 2017-18 NHL season, many had Ottawa Senators defenseman Erik Karlsson as the Norris Trophy favorite. After a quick return from injury and a strong start, he’s been slumping. So has his team. This leaves the Norris Trophy race wide open to a variety of contenders, including LA Kings defenseman Drew Doughty.
He has an advantage over everyone else – his reputation. Doughty has already won a Norris Trophy. Reputation means a lot in Norris Trophy voting, so he has a distinct advantage over the other candidates.
Let’s evaluate his chances of winning his second trophy as the best defenseman in the NHL.
Scoring
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On paper, Doughty ranks second among all NHL defenseman entering Dec. 12 with 24 points. He’s just a point away from John Klingberg, who has the lead with 25. However, this is kind of expected. After all, Doughty averages of 26 minutes of ice time per game. Naturally, those who get more ice time will get more points.
Once we take a deeper dive into the numbers, Doughty’s production per hour is less impressive. It’s only fair to compare him to his peers, so let’s set the cutoff at 500 even strength minutes (he has played 594.72). This cuts the sample size down to 50 defensemen. Doughty ranks 18th in even strength points per hour among those 50. That’s not terrible, but not outstanding either. In primary points, Doughty is ever so slightly below average, ranking 26th. And this is on a team that is a top 10 team in scoring.
For what it’s worth, Doughty ranks 13th in even strength points per hour among the 104 defensemen with at least 500 minutes during all situations. In terms of primary points, he’s 17th. Doughty’s borderline elite power play production helps him there. His even strength production is a bit concerning, but he makes up for it with outstanding power play production.
Possession
Luckily for Doughty, scoring isn’t all that matters. Possession numbers count as well. Sure, most voters probably don’t directly use them. But those numbers tell you a lot of things about how effective a player is. Most voters use an eye test version of these stats.
However, I’ll be blunt. The Kings play late at night. And I have a full-time job on top of writing for this website. So analytics are really useful because I don’t get to watch Doughty nearly as much as I would like.
Obviously, players who get a ton of power play minutes would have an unfair advantage in this category. On the other end of the spectrum, so would defensemen who kill penalties a lot. So even strength possession is what’s most telling.
Doughty has a reputation for being a great possession player, with the LA Kings dominating the shot attempt game whenever he’s on the ice. Using the same 500-minute sample size we looked at earlier, he ranks 11th in CorsiFor percentage relative. For those who look pure CorsiFor percentage, Doughty ranks 19th.
Goals are what matter, right? Well, Doughty is a net gain there as well. 60 percent of the even-strength goals he’s on the ice for are for the Kings. His 4.07 percent Goals For percentage relative ranks in the top 20. For those like me who like expected goals, Doughty is nothing short of outstanding.
Next: 3 Bold Predictions For The Kings
The Verdict
Doughty passes the eye test and the analytics test. He’s a legitimate Norris Trophy contender. Doughty’s reputation might well be what gets him the award. He’s got to overcome guys like John Klingberg, Nick Leddy, and Roman Josi. And who knows what the voters will consider when selecting the Norris Trophy winner. But one has to think Doughty has a great chance of winning.