Say you were walking into a fresh new draft tonight, what would your cheat sheet look like? The listing below is not necessarily a ranking of who's done what so far, though the banked stats do count as an audition. Instead, it's a listing of current value as I see it. Use it for trades, pickups, depth-chart analysis, or as the starter for friendly, spirited debate. I welcome your respectful disagreement in the comments, but bring your best argument as well. Further the conversation, gamer.
Today, we look at the men on the blue line.
1. Dustin Byfuglien
2. Kris Letang
3. Drew Doughty
4. Nicklas Lidstrom
5. Dan Boyle
6. Tobias Enstrom
7. Duncan Keith
8. John-Michael Liles
9. Mike Green
10. Shea Weber
11. Lubomir Visnovsky
12. Ryan Whitney
13. Erik Karlsson
14. Stephane Robidas
15. Brian Rafalski
16. Jack Johnson
17. Zdeno Chara
18. Keith Yandle
19. Christian Ehrhoff
20. Alex Goligoski
Byfuglien leads the position in goals, points and shots, and he's not far off in the assist column, either. He cannot be debated as the just No. 1 blueliner right now; this is a dominant season. … Green is the hardest player to rank in this exercise. He has 35 points on the power play last year; he has just seven this season. … Lidstrom's plus-minus isn't where we'd expect it to be, but he's had a goal spike along with those pretty 16 assists on the power play. … Karlsson is never going to be a wizard in his own end, but he's got 11 points in 12 December games (with six of them coming on the PP). … Doughty is on a 1-9-10 binge over the last two weeks and he's also built the rating up to plus-16. He looks fine to me.
21. Bryan McCabe
22. Tomas Kaberle
23. Kimmo Timonen
24. Alexander Edler
25. Joni Pitkanen
26. Brent Burns
27. James Wisniewski
28. John Carlson
29. Cam Fowler
30. Niklas Kronwall
31. Roman Hamrlik
32. Jordan Leopold
33. Marek Zidlicky
34. Brian Campbell
35. Mark Giordano
36. Dion Phaneuf
37. Dan Girardi
38. Sergei Gonchar
49. Brent Seabrook
40. Kevin Shattenkirk
Edler is just one of many talented Vancouver defensemen; they might be the deepest team in the league with respect to offensive blueliners. … Fowler has started to be more assertive with the puck of late and you can tell he's going to be a star very soon. … Anyone want to stump for a Gonchar revival in the second half? He looks shot to me. … It's a shame Carlson sees such little power play time, but eventually that's likely to change. … Wisniewski is handy with the puck, and the ugly plus-minus should fix itself somewhat in Montreal.
41. Tyler Myers
42. Kurtis Foster
43. Matt Carle
44. Alex Pietrangelo
45. Chris Pronger
46. Ryan Suter
47. Ed Jovanovski
48. Carlo Colaiacovo
49. Brett Clark
50. Erik Johnson
51. Jay Bouwmeester
52. Dennis Wideman
53. Paul Martin
54. Tom Gilbert
55. Marc Staal
56. Johnny Oduya
57. Joe Corvo
58. Victor Hedman
59. Andrej Meszaros
60. Dennis Seidenberg
Carle has stepped up his scoring in December (1-6-7), though he doesn't have a power-play point all season. … Waiting for Godot, Waiting for Guffman, and Waiting for Erik Johnson. … There's nothing special about Oduya's game, but he gets some leftover power-play time in Atlanta. … Meszaros is basically this year's version of Carle, scoring a little bit and carrying a zesty plus-20 rating.
61. Cody Franson
62. Toni Lydman
63. Michael Del Zotto
64. Adrian Aucoin
65. Matt Carkner
66. Jason Demers
67. Kevin Bieksa
68. Brad Stuart
69. Michal Rozsival
70. Anton Babchuk
71. P.K. Subban
72. Zach Bogosian
73. Steve Montador
74. Pavel Kubina
75. Anton Stralman
I've had my say, now it's your turn. Which ranks would you alter, and more importantly, why? Bring something to the discussion, amigos.
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