from Travis Yost of TSN,

One of the most interesting questions that the hockey analytics community has dealt with in recent years has concerned the old Ryan Suter and Shea Weber defence pairing in Nashville. When that pairing existed, both players were individually recognized as elite defenders, with Shea Weber being received as the slightly better of the two. The pairing eventually broke up in the summer of 2012, when Ryan Suter left Nashville for a $98-million contract in Minnesota.

Though both are still great players, I think it’s fair to say that the reputation of each has taken a slight hit since the break. Part of this is tied into the fact that their underlying numbers have never been as impressive as some of the other game-changing defenders around the league at even-strength, who generally post quality on-ice Goal% rates and on-ice Corsi% year after year. This, of course, is because most every team is usually moderately to significantly better with their first pairing on the ice, with performance depreciating as lesser pairings and players replace them.

Suter was the first to go through this. Last year, talk about Suter’s performance wasn’t critical, but appropriately focused on whether or not the team was simply playing their top-defenceman too many minutes.

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