In the end, I simply had to split forwards, defensemen, and goaltenders because Yahoo did not want to see them eye-to-eye. Once again, we're looking at the divergence between more-popular views of valuable players (via fantasy hockey) versus a stats-oriented look at valuable players (via GVT). You want to find the gulf, here it is.
This is actually a continuation of another article of this ilk on forwards. Head to that link for a bit more elaboration on the process. I want to stress that this says little about the players' careers but a lot about evaluations of performance from year-to-year.
As I mentioned before, defensemen were handled much differently by Yahoo's scoring; in general, they were rated much lower than forwards on average, so I wanted to make sure we were getting a better idea of which player types among forwards and defensemen were getting singled out in these "gaps."
The results for defensemen is a little more of a mixed bag, though in general skilled defensive defensemen get slighted and questionable or sluggish defensemen get overvalued by Yahoo. Seidenberg was a little bit of a surprise.
P.S. Skaters in both categories were ranked across 574 eligible players. Thanks to Behind the Net, data version, for the numbers, as well as Tom Awad.
P.P.S. If you want to know where any other individual player fell, let me know in the comments and I'll look it up.
Largest Gap, GVT Rank Higher Than Yahoo, Top 25 in 2009-10
Mike Weaver 247 GVT Rank | 486 Yahoo Rank | -239 Difference
Niklas Hjalmarsson 198 | 437 | -239
Marc Staal 80 | 302 | -222
Carl Gunnarsson 256 | 475 | -219
Henrik Tallinder 182 | 395 | -213
Ryan Wilson 180 | 392 | -212
Mike Lundin 346 | 547 | -201
Greg Zanon 315 | 514 | -199
Jordan Hendry 362 | 551 | -189
Rob Scuderi 276 | 465 | -189
Bryce Salvador 228 | 407 | -179
Niklas Kronwall 156 | 334 | -178
Mike Mottau 220 | 397 | -177
Chris Phillips 113 | 290 | -177
Anton Volchenkov 268 | 441 | -173
Nick Schultz 250 | 417 | -167
Randy Jones 241 | 406 | -165
Brett Carson 347 | 508 | -161
Mark Eaton 279 | 438 | -159
Roman Polak 181 | 340 | -159
Chris Campoli 301 | 459 | -158
Sean O’Donnell 201 | 358 | -157
Brooks Orpik 167 | 324 | -157
Cody Franson 148 | 305 | -157
Mark Fraser 390 | 543 | -153
Average offensive GVT for these players: 1.288 – Average defensive GVT: 4.224
Largest Gap, Yahoo Rank Higher Than GVT, Top 25 in 2009-10
Ryan Whitney 304 GVT Rank | 136 Yahoo Rank | 168 Difference
Matt Carkner 327 | 205 | 122
Dion Phaneuf 216 | 95 | 121
Dennis Seidenberg 316 | 197 | 119
Zach Bogosian 387 | 289 | 98
Sheldon Brookbank 400 | 306 | 94
Craig Rivet 415 | 332 | 83
Bryan Allen 450 | 377 | 73
Anton Stralman 285 | 215 | 70
Cam Barker 302 | 236 | 66
Andrej Meszaros 396 | 337 | 59
Shaone Morrisonn 474 | 418 | 56
Dmitry Kulikov 434 | 383 | 51
Francois Beauchemin 320 | 276 | 44
Kevin Bieksa 318 | 277 | 41
Nick Boynton 447 | 414 | 33
John Erskine 432 | 400 | 32
Keith Ballard 269 | 244 | 25
Douglas Murray 376 | 352 | 24
Bryan McCabe 124 | 103 | 21
Steve Montador 287 | 267 | 20
Matt Walker 500 | 481 | 19
Kyle Quincey 186 | 169 | 17
Andy Sutton 385 | 372 | 13
Jaroslav Spacek 286 | 273 | 13
Average offensive GVT for these players: 1.06 – Average defensive GVT: 2.112
