How does Makar miss out over Spurgeon, Dunn?
How does Heiskanen miss out over Dunn
How does DeBrincat miss out over Schwartz
How does Binnington miss out over Bishop?

I'd take Connor or Forsberg over Schwartz -- there are a few you could argue over Dunn as well, but makes sense for the most part.

Makar will take over very soon but Jared Spurgeon has been the Wilds best Dman for many years, and he is strong at both ends. Dunn is a very strong puck mover and is decent defensively and Heiskanen had a tiny bit of a sophomore slump, that one was very close though. Jaden Schwartz has also been massively underrated for ever. Elite offensively and defensively and I would take that any day over just pure finishers like DeBrincat and Connor (I am a Jets fan I see it all the time) Bishop was just a tad better than Binnington this year and my opinion, not by much though.

First, Makar is great but Spurgeon is better. You could make a case for Heiskanen over Dunn. Schwartz is better than DeBrincat lol

Hope you're not serious about the last one

I saw a Helle and Binnington one before so I was wondering...

id take forsberg over laine, very stacked d in this division,parayko and eklhom are also studs

Straight crazy if you think Spurgeon is better than Makar. Remember Makar is already a proven playoff performer.

I get Bishop kinda, but can’t agree with you more.
Hell I’d take Parayko over Dunn and Spurgeon.

Debrincat literally had more goals than that scrub Schwartz had points last season.

Last three seasons

Cat: 87 goals, 86 assists, 173pts

Schwartz: 57 goals, 95 assists, 152 pts

Spurgeon is overrated at this point. Maker is an easy choice over him.

Spurgeon is better (all-around) currently. And not putting him aside, but the Wild aren't a playoff team usually and it's not because of Suter-Spurgeon.



He isn't overrated, it's just that you only use the eye test to justify your point...



Maybe don't forget the number of games they played... Schwartz has a PPG of 0.75 and DeBrincat 0.74 over the past three seasons. DeBrincat the better scorer, Schwartz for playmaking. 0.01 isn't enough to say x guy is better than y but Schwartz' defensive game is better so I will take him. You can take DeBrincat if you want.

Look at the Wild's overall record with and without Spurgeon since they signed Suter/Parise. The Wild have the same p% for those games, it makes no difference if he's on the team or not in how they do.
He misses around 8 games a year due to injury.
He's topped 40p once in his career.
His p/60 aren't anything special and neither is his +/- (compared to the team).
He's an adv stats darling, same as Nino was in MN.
He's been glued to Suter's hip for years and before that it was Scandella. He's always been the weaker of the two d-man in his pairing.
Spurgeon is a product of the system MN runs and the players it's had. Swap him and say Risto or Barrie and Spurgeon would get as much hate as they do, and Risto/Barie would be looked at like top-10 d-men in the league.
Or look at Rielly in Tor. He lost his babysitter and went from a stud he was the last year to people asking what's wrong with him this year.

Your first four points are irrelevant. It's easy to say " swap him with " or " put that x guy " and he'll be as good, you don't know that. " Spurgeon is a product of the system MN runs " of course that's why Dumba is that good...

His transition is questioned and he is poor on the PK, it appears. But otherwise, he's good/very good in pretty much everything else.
Spurgeon is now better than Suter, I don't know what it will take for you to understand that

When Spurgeon is out it's not just swapping xguy in it's playing your pressbox d-man (Prosser/Seeler quality) and moving everyone else up in the lineup. Spurgeon >>> Prosser/Seeler. This year MN was 4-3-1 (1.25 p%) without Spurgeon, and 31-24-6 (1.11 p%). It's not a 1 season statistical anomaly either. I've done the math in the past and this holds true, but I am too lazy to do it again for the team's record with/without Spurgeon.

Like I said he's a statistical darling, but it doesn't translate on the ice.

To make this simple I'll just use MN's d-men (700 min+ ToI) 5v5 stats:
g/60: Spurgeon (.47), Soucy (.46), Hunt (.41), Suter (.24), Dumba (.2), Brodin (.1)
Ta/60: Suter (1.02), Brodin (.96), Soucy (.54), Spurgeon (.53), Dumba (.49), Hunt (.33)
1a/60: Suter (.49), Soucy (.46), Brodin (.43), Spurgeon (.29), Dumba/Hunt (.25)
2a/60: Suter (.54), Brodin (.53), Dumba (.25), Spurgeon (.24), Hunt/Soucy (.08)
p/60: Suter (1.26), Brodin (1.06), Soucy (1.01), Spurgeon (1), Hunt (.74), Dumba (.69)
ToI: Brodin (1246), Suter (1232), Dumba (1222), Spurgeon (1018), Soucy (775), Hunt (731)
g: Spurgeon (8), Soucy (6), Suter/Hunt (5), Dumba (4), Brodin (2)
a: Suter (21), Brodin (20), Dumba (10), Spurgeon (9), Soucy (7), Hunt (4)
p: Suter (26), Brodin (22), Spurgeon (17), Dumba (14), Soucy (13), Hunt (9)
Overall +/-: Soucy (+16), Brodin (+15), Spurgeon (-1), Suter (-6), Dumba/Hunt (-7)

I could keep going with these stats, but I'm bored with this now. Once you look at the league-wide rankings for d-men Spurgeon isn't even in the top-50 for d-men is a bunch of them. I'm not saying Spugeon is awful, he's just nowhere near a top-10 d-man in the league. It's not like this was a 1 off year where he got injured to suppress his stats. He's only completed 1 full season (out of 9 played) and on average he misses 9 or 10 games a year due to injury.

Dumba was awful last year (nobody will argue that). Hunt is a fringe NHLer (nobody should argue that either). Soucy was very good (and I hope other GMs are asleep on him). Brodin was MN's best d-man considering he had to carry Dumba most of the year and got the tougher draws. Suter was Suter, not flashy but does everything so well.

So I guess we just decide to make them appear out of nowhere and choose a random player and say " these stats belongs to that guy "