Just like a one-two punch at center is an important facet to a team's success, the importance of a one-two punch on defense is equally as important, yet harder to discover.
When your big guy is not on the ice, eating tons of minutes and playing all the important scenarios, who will be? For some teams this really is a difficulty that is hard to overcome. Who holds the water for Boston when Krug/Chara are not on the ice? What about Carolina when Justin Faulk is off the ice? And of course, what happens to Ottawa when the perennial Norris candidate Erik Karlsson takes a seat?
There are a few teams in the NHL though that have the gift of a deep defense. Then there are the few teams, through good drafting, good development, and a bit of luck, that do not have just one player who can dictate a game, they have two.
Jake Muzzin and Drew Doughty, both together and on their own, have turned into marvelous defensemen.
While for many seasons we saw the duo paired together with overwhelming success, this year we are seeing something a bit different. While they are both still having tremendous seasons, it is coming mainly apart from each other. From 2012 to 2015, Jake Muzzin played a whopping 2,235 of his total 3,215 even strength minutes alongside No. 8. The next closes defenseman was Matt Greene, whom he played just over 500 minutes with at even strength. For this very reason, Jake Muzzin not only rose to prominence amongst traditional and analytical thinkers of the game, he also started seeing criticism. It resulted in what I liked to call the "Muzzin Paradox"
Critics believed that Muzzin's numbers were inflated due to playing alongside Drew Doughty. However, when Muzzin was separated from Doughty and his numbers remained strong it was because, ironically, he was not playing alongside Drew Doughty and getting really tough minutes!
This year none of that has been the case.
Muzzin has played 1239 even strength minutes this season, and a paltry 274 of them have come alongside the Kings prominent rear guard, and his numbers have been great.
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(And McNabb's numbers truly are a bit inflated from playing with Drew Doughty, take a look courtesy of .
CorsicaHockey ()
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With Darryl Sutter, this was always by design and never by accident. Jake Muzzin has developed into a very worthwhile defenseman on his own, and a separation in order to spread the wealth was natural. What has resulted is the Kings having two near elite level defensemen on two separate pairs.
This has given the Kings a tremendous amount of versatility in their top four in terms of usage. With Muzzin and Doughty together you are saddling the two best play driving defensemen for the Kings on the same pair, but apart you can open up to shutting down top-6s separately, or exposing weaknesses by getting a good match up against a lower line. For the Kings, with Doughty, you could also slot in guys like Robyn Regehr or Rob Scuderi to almost little to no ill-effect to your roster, aside from on Poor Doughty himself. Even then, he is a good enough defenseman that the negative is not as much as say a Scuderi-Schenn pairing, but whatever.
Sutter is a very mindful coach with his zone starts, and what you are seeing between Muzzin and Doughty is very similar.
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A spread near zero is ideal if you do not want to bury your best defenseman in the D-zone all the time.
As you can see, the Kings basically have two really high level defensemen NOT playing together, but playing similar roles on the squad. Maybe the only real difference here is the massive time on ice that Doughty logs, which puts him on another level. The No. 1 level. Muzzin, basically picks up the ice time where Doughty has left off. It is a nice security net for the Kings. In tight games, late games, or games with a high level, we have also seen Sutter put the duo together at even strength for a little extra push. Again, versatility. The Kings have these options of a juggernaut pair, or two very capable separate pairs, thanks to this one-two tandem.
Think now about other teams in the NHL. Who has such a luxury?
You could probably pick out maybe five teams that run with something similar. Maybe three.
One would most definitely have to be Shea Weber and Roman Josi with Nashville.
Duncan Keith and Brent Seabrook of Chicago are also up there.
Pietrangelo/Shattenkirk in St. Louis potentially.
Do maybe Kris Letang and the young Olli Maatta measure up?
Stralman and Hedman?
After the tandems of Doughty/Muzzin, Josi/Weber, Brodie/Giordano, and Keith/Seabrook it gets a little fuzzy. Even Josi/Weber are a bit questionable perhaps. There really are few elite one-twos
There are numerous other tandems in the NHL that nearly hit that level but not quite. A duo like Brent Burns and Marc-Edouard Vlasic. They are both really good defensemen. Brent Burns is a No. 1 who can play No. 1 minutes on probably 80% of the teams in the league. Vlasic? Maybe not so much. Stralman and Hedman are really really good together, but could Stralman be on a near elite level by himself? (You could probably argue yes on this one, but it is currently in a Muzzin Paradox state I believe). When you slice it up, most teams have either a question of quality in either the No. 1, or the No. 2. Or perhaps the gap is too great from No. 1 to No. 2. Or maybe there is no true No. 1. You could put a lot of teams in this league into one of those categories.
The point here is that there are few teams in the NHL that can boast such a robust set of defensemen in their top four. Most top defensemen, like Erik Karlsson or Oliver Ekmann-Larsson, are left on an island with little support once they are off the ice. Or in the case of a team like Tampa Bay or Calgary that has a really good one-two tandem but play them together.
The Kings separating Doughty and Muzzin after numerous seasons of positive returns was a risky move, however it played out perfectly for the Kings. Sutter now has more versatility in the top four, and more protection for his forward groups and second tier defensemen. He has found pairings that work, with McNabb and Martinez settling into roles that are also protected by the good play of their partners. It has worked for everyone.
It also creates more opportunity to marvel at plays like this from Doughty
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and like this from Muzzin
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Try to name a better 1-2, try to name a better top four this season. It really is difficult.
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