Lets face it. Up until a few games ago, Norris Trophy winner Brent Burns has struggled to find his game this season. He leads the NHL in shot attempts by a ton, yet until the OT winner against the Carolina Hurricanes, only had one goal on the year. He added on a couple more during the Minnesota OT loss, and you can see he’s starting to find it a little bit in the offensive zone. Burns’ play has been uncharacteristic for the defenseman who had a total of 76 points last season with 29 goals to lead all NHL blue liners. By this date last season, Burns had 27 points on his way to a Norris Trophy campaign. This season, Burns only has 18 points with 4 goals and 14 assists.
The offensive struggles, however, are not unique to Burns. Offensive numbers from defensemen are down across the board in the NHL. In fact, there are no D-men in the top 50 in points, and they don’t even sniff the top fifty in goals. The points leader among defensemen is John Klingberg of Dallas with 25, and the leading goal scorer is Zach Werenski of Columbus with nine. The elite defenders like Drew Doughty (5G, 19A, 24P), P.K Subban (4G, 14A, 18P) Shea Weber (6G, 10A, 16P) are all having average years. Erik Karlsson, the consensus best defenseman in the NHL is having the worst year of his career with one goal, 17 assists with 18 points. Karlsson until last week, hadn’t scored a point since November 11th. For a reference, there were three defensemen last season with over 70 points. Burns, Karlsson and Tampa Bay’s Victor Hedman, who’s right there in the middle of the pack this year as well.
The game is changing. Its speeding up, and its much more counter attack-centric, rather than being played from the blue line down. The Sharks still play that way because they are not set up to run their offense on odd-man rushes. Rather, they prefer to allow their defensemen like Burns set up the offense, get shots on goal and hope for a rebound or redirect. Their forwards don’t have the speed to play the way the NHL is trending, which is towards more of a speed and skill game. At the same time, teams on defense are crowding the net more often, allowing for more blocked shots. And there are more good goalies this year than there has been in quite some time. This could be why you’re seeing only average offensive numbers from superstar defensemen across the league.
Fear not Sharks fans, while it seems like Burnsie is struggling to find his game, the numbers say he’s having an average year. Brent Burns is far from an average player, and is not without criticism. With the money the Sharks are paying him, and the focus they put on him on the offensive end, he needs to be playing better. But it isn’t as bad as it looks.