Three young defenders prepare to take off with increased responsibility in 2023-24
First published on Daily Faceoff | By Mike Gould | Last updated 10/19/23
We’re still in the early days of the 2023-2024 NHL season, but the winds of change are already beginning to blow. New faces are starting to appear in the league, while other more experienced players have begun to decline.
Obviously talking about new people is much more fun. Everyone has seen more than their fair share of Connor Bedard highlights, and youngsters Logan Cooley, Zach Benson and Ridly Greig are taking the league by storm.
But this isn’t a piece about them. Instead, we’re going to take a gander at three overlooked young defensemen who are taking major strides early on this season with the benefit of increased responsibility.
All three of these guys are under 25 and entered the league with pretty solid pedigree — and all three are exceeding expectations in the early goings of the new season. We’ll start out in the desert and work our way north from there.
Sean Durzi (Arizona Coyotes)
When the Coyotes acquired Sean Durzi from the Los Angeles Kings in June, he was coming off a season in which he had scored 38 points in 72 games. He appears ready to take on more responsibility on a rebuilding team looking to take the next step.
So far so good. Through his first three games with the Coyotes, Durzi is averaging an incredible 25:
.07 of ice time while being able to contribute on both the power play and penalty kill.
Durzi, who turns 25 on Saturday, is on par with Rasmus Dahlin and Victor Hedman in usage per game. And while he doesn’t have as much impact in his own zone as either of those players, he has all the skills necessary to score 50 points in the right situation.
Practically the number one on this Arizona team, Durzi has stepped right into the role that Jakob Chychrun filled when healthy during his final four seasons with the Coyotes. Durzi is not the biggest player, but he is capable of playing on both wings and producing huge numbers when deployed correctly.
Individually, Durzi leads all Coyotes skaters in shots in all situations through three games this season. He is the best among defenders in terms of scoring goals. And in the Coyotes’ season opener against the New Jersey Devils on October 13, Durzi scored a single for the team’s first power play goal of the year.
Nicolas Hague (Vegas Golden Knights)
It may seem counterintuitive to include someone who has reached the pinnacle of the sport on a list like this, but Nicolas Hague is thriving with more responsibility with Vegas Golden Knights to begin their fifth NHL season.
With Alex Pietrangelo, Zach Whitecloud and Alec Martinez all on the injured list, Hague’s average ice time has increased north of 21 minutes per night through the first four games of the 2023-24 season. He has scored three points so far while positively impacting the game on both ends of the court.
Hague began the season paired with Pietrangelo, but now skates alongside Brayden McNabb in the Golden Knights’ second unit. With Hague on the court, Vegas controlled 53.85% of all shot attempts at 5-on-5 and 55.17% of expected goals, according to Natural Stat Trick. Not bad at all!
With Martinez possibly entering his final year with the Golden Knights and McNabb about to turn 30, Vegas needs players like Hague and Whitecloud to become legitimate top-four defensemen. For the first time in his career to date, Hague has been deployed on a regular basis in this position – and he is still continuing.
Even with the experience of playing in more than 250 NHL games (including the playoffs), Hague won’t turn 25 until December. The 6-foot-6 Kitchener prop has all the advantages, especially if he continues to shoot the puck like this:
Brock Faber (Minnesota Wild)
The Minnesota Wild appear to have made the right choice in targeting hometown boy Brock Faber. in the Kevin Fiala trade. (By the way, it’s pure coincidence that the first two players on this list were both from the Los Angeles Kings organization).
Faber turns 21 in August and has played exactly five regular-season games with the Wild since turning pro at the end of the 2022-23 college season, but he certainly doesn’t look like ‘ an inexperienced player’.
Through three games with the Wild this year, Faber has logged 23:
.06 of ice time per game – more than any other skater on the team. Jonas Brodin, Kirill Kaprizov, etc. Jared Spurgeon’s injury absence has allowed Faber to assert himself, and he has done so with gusto.
The Wild outscored their opponents by quite a margin when Faber was on the court, and he was unprotected. He plays almost all of his time in 5v5 and PK mode with almost no use of PP. Almost no veteran NHL player has the ability to perform like Faber did in his first dozen games with the Wild.
Even when Spurgeon returns, Faber should remain a fixture in Minnesota’s top four. If he keeps up this level of play, he could be right in the conversation with the likes of Connor Bedard and Logan Cooley for the Calder Trophy by the season’s end.
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