4 Nations Face-Off: Leaving Evan Bouchard Off Team Canada Is A Mistake
Bouchard's undeserved reputation as a defensive liability cost him a spot on Team Canada's roster, to their detriment.
Team Canada has a type when it comes to defencemen.
Going back years, they've always favoured big, shutdown defenders who can move the puck a little over true offensive game-breakers prone to the occasional defensive miscue. With that in mind, Evan Bouchard always faced an uphill battle to make Canada's roster for the 4 Nations Face-Off.
But that doesn't mean excluding him in favour of Colton Parayko and Travis Sanheim was the right move.
Bouchard is undeniably an elite defenceman. In fact, you could make a pretty strong argument that he's Canada's second-best defenceman behind Cale Makar. He may make the occasional turnover, but there's much more to Bouchard than that.
We'll start with the simple fact that Bouchard's team dominates when he's on the ice. He leads all NHL defencemen in expected goals share since the start of last season, at at just a shade below 61%.
[embed]https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=1ImX2XLHyjc[/embed]
He and partner Mattias Ekholm are 1-2 in both scoring chance share and high-danger chance share. There isn't a single defenceman in the league who's been on the ice for more of his teams' goals or high-danger chances. When Evan Bouchard is on the ice, good things happen.
The argument then becomes that he benefits from spending most of his ice time with Connor McDavid. That may be true, but McDavid has played with plenty of defencemen in his career and none of them have done anything close to what Bouchard's done. The numbers show that not only does Bouchar still succeed without McDavid, but he easily outperforms Cale Makar in the same situation.
At any rate, it's silly to argue against Bouchard's inclusion because he benefits from playing with Connor McDavid. This is Team Canada, one of the most offensively stacked rosters you could hope to put together. Play Bouchard behind any one of their four lines and he'll have three elite forwards to pass the puck to, with another elite defenceman beside him to boot. His excellence next to elite players is a plus, not a minus.
Bouchard may not have the size or defensive chops of Colton Parayko or Travis Sanheim, sure. But the truth is he's outplayed them defensively. As noted by NHL_Sid on Twitter, Bouchard has been on the ice for fewer even-strength goals per 60 than both Parayko and Sanheim, plus fellow Team Canada members Devon Toews and Alex Pietrangelo. Whatever his reputation, Bouchard is anything but a defensive liability.
It's certainly not a shock to see Bouchard snubbed in favour of more traditional defensive defencemen. It probably won't matter too much in the end, anyway. Canada has more than enough offensive firepower to win without Bouchard, and if they don't win it'll likely be thanks to woefully subpar goaltending.
But it seems that Team Canada's front office has fallen into the all-too-common trap of focusing too much on Bouchard's supposed faults and missing out on his consistently elite impact. Bouchard may not have been a fit on this version of Team Canada, but there's no argument he's one of his country's seven best defencemen.
*All advanced stats courtesy of Natural Stat Trick
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