- MaximumBone[Note: This may be a bigger response than you wanted]

While I don't disagree with the second paragraph, my initial impression is to think this is confirmation bias telling you something that isn't happening to the extremes you're suggesting. That being said, it's an intriguing case that I'll look into now.

So Draisaitl and Nurse have been on-ice together for 30 goals for and 30 goals against and their possession numbers are around team average- even slightly above. In a unique twist of cosmic fate, Draisaitl has also been on-ice for 30 goals for and 30 goals against when away from Nurse.

However, they ARE being outchanced from high-danger areas with when together:

46.4% w/ both
48% w/ just Drai
54.6% w/ just Nurse
49.1% w/o either

From this we can infer that Drai is an overall mild drag on defending the important areas compared to the team average (48 Vs 49.1) and that the two of them together seem to struggle more when together (46.4 Vs 48 & 54.6) implying that there could be something to your theory. Now what if we remove McDavid's time with them?

After separating their minutes together from those minutes with McDavid, they're actually still 9-8. A slight improvement, but an improvement nonetheless. Here's where I think your theory starts to take some hold. Drai and Nurse together but w/o McDavid post a 38.2% (!!!) high-danger chance ratio.

As this observation of yours is likely from recent experience and since Drai has spent the last 2 months playing away from Connor, I wanted to check these results to those with Yamamoto (to make sure he wasn't just REALLY bad in his short stint away from Connor back in Nov/Dec). Lo-and-behold! It matches up pretty well with Drai w/ Nurse & Yamo posting a 37.5% high-danger chance ratio when together.

Despite my initial skepticism, I must say that you may be onto something. There's something about the way that dominant forward line plays when on-ice with Nurse (and Bear, keep in mind) that leads to much greater HD chances against than otherwise. Perhaps the mix of high pressure forechecking and risk-taking from the Fs in conjunction with Nurse's tendency for braincramps.

As a counterpoint to this, it's only fair to mention that despite getting otuchanced like this together, they have consistently managed to win the goal share battle. While fewer chances against would be great, the fact that they're not allowing those chances to be goals is something. This will be something to keep an eye on.

A very sincere thank you for this, awesome work and very interesting! I of course was basing this on merely watching the games (i.e. talking out of my ace). I have always said that I would rather have Draisaitl with his nonchalant defensive attitude than not have him on the team at all, it's just frustrating to watch him sometimes. When you combine a forward, especially the C, that doesn't want to dig for pucks with a defenseman who tends to panic and make bad decisions, it's hard to exit the zone effectively. My honest opinion is that Ethan Bear is covering up for so many of Nurse's shortcomings back there.

Also, comparing Drai to the "team average" is not exactly positive either. lol

It would also be interesting to see the improvement in Drai's numbers when he's out there with RNH. Draisaitl is still young, hopefully he'll get it.