Grading every NHL team’s blueline depth

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Our feature grading the positional depth of each NHL team continues this week, with a focus on the blueline.

If you missed our prior talent tiers, they are referenced below – please check them out.

NHL Team Forward Talent Tiers

Our approach to grading defencemen will be similar, but not identical to the way we evaluated forwards. We overweight top-four defenders – for most teams, three to four defencemen play nearly identical ice time across all situations – and underweight third-pairing defenders.

One other critical housekeeping note: third pairings are a frequent area of intra-season change, with coaches bringing up players from the AHL (due to injury, underperformance at the NHL level, or whatever the case may be), and to that end, most teams’ depth chart runs seven or eight players deep at the defensive position.

We score based on a core group of six defenders we expect to see regular NHL ice-time.

And little different format this time – addressing all 32 teams. To the tiers!

Tier 5, In Trouble: Arizona Coyotes, Columbus Blue Jackets, San Jose Sharks

Arizona: For a group that is low on high-end talent, it perplexes me Arizona would consider trading a defender the calibre of Jakob Chychrun, especially on an exceptionally team-friendly and budget-conscious contract. Perhaps that’s why we haven’t seen movement yet – the Coyotes are asking for the moon, and for good reason.

Columbus: It’s Zach Werenski and not much else. For an organization that has generally made the right moves over and over, I can’t for the life of me understand the Erik Gudbranson contract. Gudbranson had a great year in Calgary playing with Nikita Zadorov but compare quality of teammate options in Calgary to that of Columbus and