This one's tough.
Looking at the guys who were nominated, they all have some pluses and some minuses:
[tablegrid= Stats ]
| | | All situations | | | | | | | EV | | | | 5 on 5 | |
| Player | Team(s) | GP | G | A | P | +/- | TOI/60 | CF% | CF% rel | O/DSt% | EVTm% | PPTm% | SHTm% | TotTm% QoC | TotTm% QoT |
| Duncan Keith | Blackhawks | 79 | 6 | 55 | 61 | 22 | 24.2 | 57% | 2% | 57% | 37% | 61% | 48% | 29% | 29% |
| Zdeno Chara | Bruins | 77 | 17 | 23 | 40 | 25 | 24.4 | 55% | 2% | 48% | 37% | 55% | 58% | 30% | 28% |
| Shea Weber | Predators | 79 | 23 | 33 | 56 | -2 | 26.5 | 48% | -1% | 45% | 41% | 63% | 54% | 30% | 29% |
[/tablegrid]
All three of them compiled about half their goals on the PP. Keith and Weber spent more time on the PP as a percentage of their teams' time on the PP (PPtm%) than Chara and had a lot more PP assists than he did (18 for Keith, 14 for Weber, 5 for Chara).
Keith has the most points and best CF%, but also had a much higher O/DSt% to help him compile that CF% and points compared to Chara or Weber.
Weber has the most goals of any defenseman and the second most points of the three, but the worst CF% (and a negative one relative to his teammates!). He did however compile the 48% CF% in part because he had the lowest O/DSt%, though only slightly lower than Chara's. The Preds were really relying on him 5 on 5 for defense. He also played the most minutes per game by a full two minutes. The negative +/- doesn't really matter to me, but the 48% CF even with the 45% O/DSt% does.
Chara has the fewest points but the second most goals and the second best CF%. That CF% is more impressive because of his O/DSt%. Moreover, he had the lowest PPTm% and highest SHTm%. But he still had the worst production and was on the best team.
I honestly have no idea who the voters will go for. I would say that I think Weber will win because of the goals, points and rep, but the negative +/- probably makes it hard for voters to check the box for him. I think they'll think it's weird to have a "best defenseman" with a negative +/-. I don't think that's ever happened since they started tracking the stat.
I would probably go for Chara out of hometown bias, but I think Weber would probably be a reasonable choice even with the CF% below 50% and a negative CF% rel. I think that's offfset by the additional production over Chara and the O/DSt%. I don't really care about the +/-, he was on a below average team, whereas the other two were on two of the best teams in the league.
I think Keith has too few goals compared to the other two despite playing all that PP time and that his CF% has to be discounted strongly because of the O/DSt% advantage over the other two.
But I'm not dug in on this.
