Wednesday, October 3, 2012

WHL defences by the numbers

Next up, the team-by-team bluelines. I've added up the total career (regular season and playoffs both) games played and point totals for all the defencemen listed on league rosters.

As with the goalies, the number in brackets is that team's rank across the league in that category. Below list is sorted by total games played, descending:



#        Rookies    Ht (in.)          Wt (lb)            Age               Games      Points      
Saskatoon Blades8273.38 (13)196.63 (6)18.50 (1)1033 (1)390 (1)
Prince Albert Raiders10173.30 (15)198.00 (4)18.50 (1)931 (2)233 (7)
Portland Winterhawks7273.57 (11)200.43 (3)18.14 (6)922 (3)366 (2)
Kelowna Rockets9273.11 (17)195.89 (8)17.89 (15)905 (4)261 (5)
Brandon Wheat Kings8273.50 (12)194.63 (12)18.13 (8)891 (5)295 (3)
Medicine Hat Tigers8374.75 (2)190.50 (18)18.25 (3)839 (6)173 (14)
Kootenay Ice8274.38 (4)195.00 (11)18.13 (8)775 (7)196 (11)
Tri-City Americans8372.88 (21)182.50 (22)18.25 (3)770 (8)195 (12)
Moose Jaw Warriors8273.25 (16)193.13 (16)18.13 (8)760 (9)221 (8)
Swift Current Broncos7274.00 (7)195.43 (9)18.14 (6)743 (10)202 (10)
Spokane Chiefs8273.00 (18)186.25 (21)17.88 (17)742 (11)287 (4)
Kamloops Blazers9373.00 (18)190.11 (20)17.89 (15)732 (12)161 (15)
Calgary Hitmen8374.75 (2)201.88 (2)18.25 (3)697 (13)186 (13)
Vancouver Giants8373.88 (8)190.25 (19)18.13 (8)668 (14)161 (15)
Edmonton Oil Kings8273.88 (8)192.88 (17)18.00 (12)632 (15)253 (6)
Victoria Royals9473.00 (18)197.89 (5)17.56 (21)577 (16)93 (20)
Red Deer Rebels10473.70 (10)196.00 (7)18.00 (12)571 (17)141 (17)
Everett Silvertips8474.13 (6)193.75 (13)17.88 (17)556 (18)215 (9)
Regina Pats8373.38 (13)193.50 (14)18.00 (12)508 (19)107 (19)
Prince George Cougars8474.25 (5)193.50 (14)17.88 (17)462 (20)70 (22)
Lethbridge Hurricanes8472.50 (22)195.25 (10)17.88 (17)418 (21)108 (18)
Seattle Thunderbirds7376.00 (1)202.86 (1)17.29 (22)340 (22)89 (21)

So Portland has the league's most veteran defence group, while their I-5 rivals in Seattle have the least experienced. For some perspective there, Hawks defenceman Troy Rutkowski has 335 games of career experience, which is 5 games less than the entire Seattle defence.

Seattle does have the biggest average defence, checking in at a huge 6'4" and almost 203 pounds, the largest in the league in both height and weight. But can their big men play? Lethbridge has the smallest average defence, at 6'0.5". Lethbridge is also 4th-youngest (tied) and 2nd-least experienced (and half their experience is in Dan Johnston's body), so we'll see how a small, young, inexperienced defence can do.

Saskatoon's defence is the oldest and also has the most career points, with 390 - and that's 320 more points than the Prince George Cougars, the least offensively-successful team on the blueline.

1 comment:

Anonymous said...

What would be the points per game. Portland looked like about .3, Everett was about .5