TLDR – most public models today under-value players, especially defensemen, who get extremely hard assignments playing against the most dangerous players on other teams, resulting in them having poorer advanced metrics than they should. Because the players they are skating against are so good, the “expected” values these players should be judged against are lower than they are today.
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Graphic is from this excellent article today analyzing the impact of opponents on players’ expected production. Give it a read if you can, absolutely fascinating stuff https://theathletic.com/5368378/2024/03/28/nhl-moritz-seider-usage-players-numbers/
TLDR – most public models today under-value players, especially defensemen, who get extremely hard assignments playing against the most dangerous players on other teams, resulting in them having poorer advanced metrics than they should. Because the players they are skating against are so good, the “expected” values these players should be judged against are lower than they are today.
[Here’s a usage chart for the entire roster.](https://cdn.theathletic.com/app/uploads/2024/03/25232344/Screenshot-2024-03-25-at-11.22.27%E2%80%AFPM.png)
Note how tougher the competition is for Oleksiak-Borgen than Evans-Schwartz. Burakovsky is given probably the easiest matchups among fowards.
Borgen🫡😤💪