After watching Noah Hanifin take two brutal penalties in the third period last night, it would be easy to question if Hanifin is progressing like fans hoped he would.
Selected in the top five of the 2015 draft, Noah Hanifin showed great promise. Most analysts thought it was a steal. Hanifin, who was tabbed as a top three pick, was also ranked as the number one overall defenseman in the draft. But so far has Hanifin lived up to the hype? We’ll take a deeper look at Hanifin’s play and delve into the numbers. Hopefully, a more accurate picture will emerge on how well Noah Hanifin is actually playing.
At first glance, Hanifin appears to thrive with the Carolina Hurricanes. His four goals and 22 points last season put him fourth among rookie defenseman. This season Hanifin picked up where he left off and assisted on 4 goals in the last 5 games. According to Corsica, 16 of Hanifin’s 22 assists in his career have been primary assists. This a good sign showing that Hanifin is actually directing the play and not just being noise. Another good sign is that Hanifin scored over half of his points at 5v5. Hanifin isn’t just relying on the power play to drive his production.
But while Hanifin’s production is good, his underlying numbers show that trouble may be brewing on the horizon. One key number is his TOI. Despite being one of two defenders (the other is Justin Faulk of course) to get significant time on the power play, Hanifin is still playing third pairing minutes for Carolina. Other Hurricanes’ defenders are averaging close to 20 minutes a game. This season Hanifin clocks in around 16 minutes according to Natural Stat Trick. In addition, Hanifin is only averaging 8 seconds per game on the PK as well.
For some reason, Peters doesn’t trust Hanifin with the same amount of minutes. Other sophomore defenders, such as Jaccob Slavin and Brett Pesce, average close to twenty minutes a night. Once again, a deeper look at the stats shows why. Noah Hanifin’s Corsi rates for 5v5 aren’t really that great. His RelCA60 is 1.68 and his RelCF60 is -1.93. This means that per 60 minutes of play the Carolina Hurricanes have fewer shot attempts for and more against when Noah Hanifin is on the ice.
While it is still early in the season to draw any concrete conclusions from these numbers, they do fall in line with what Hanifin posted for the Carolina Hurricanes last season. Natural Stat Trick lists Hanifin’s relative Corsi rates as RelCA60 2.98 and RelCF60 -0.82 for the 2015-16 season. In his short career, Noah has established himself as a potent weapon on the power play, but his 5v5 play seems to be lackluster, and it shows in the way that Peters has deployed him in the games this year.
While Hanifin’s point production has been nice, the Carolina Hurricanes didn’t draft Noah Hanifin to just be a power play specialist. They drafted Noah Hanifin to be a complete first pairing defenseman. Hanifin’s play hasn’t lived up to that billing both in the numbers he’s put up and in the coaching staff’s usage of him on the ice. Hanifin is still young and there is time for him to improve his defensive game. But just judging by what Hanifin’s done so far in his short career, he hasn’t lived up to the potential the Carolina Hurricanes believed he had as a top 5 draft pick.
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