The Thrashers Swedish Defensive Duo of Enstrom and Havelid have played together from most of this season and last season. They are the club's best defensive pairing.
Both players bring things to the table. Enstrom brings his skating and passing and Havelid brings physicality and hitting. Perhaps it is an unfair question, but which of these guys is contributing the most?
To try and get some leverage on this question I looked at their ES Plus/Minus Rating while together (-2) to their ES rating while playing apart from one another. Enstrom is +4 and Havelid is a -1. Using this measure, Enstrom comes out looking better.
ES Goals For | ES Goals Against | ES +/- | |
Enstrom + Havelid | 27 | 29 | -2 |
Enstrom with Other D | 18 | 14 | +4 |
Havelid with Other D | 14 | 15 | -1 |
Defensemen are supposed to try and prevent goals, but goals are rare compared to shots. Because shots occur more frequently than goals they can give us a more fine grained feeling for what is going on out there on the ice. When Enstrom and Havelid have been on the ice together this year at Even Strength they have been out shot by a margin of -99. When Havelid played apart at ES the team was out shot by -62 and when Enstrom played apart the team had a positive shot differential of +4
ES Shots For | ES Shots Against | ES Shot Differential | |
Enstrom + Havelid | 271 | 370 | -99 |
Enstrom with Other D | 142 | 138 | +4 |
Havelid with Other D | 96 | 158 | -62 |
Perhaps you're thinking "well who did each guy play with when there were apart. Here are the ES playing time minutes for each.
Enstrom ES Partners | Minutes | Havelid ES Partners | Minutes |
Havelid | 562 | Enstrom | 562 |
Oystrick | 143 | Valabik | 122 |
Schneider | 49 | Exelby | 48 |
Hainsey | 47 | Hainsey | 33 |
Valabik | 13 | Oystrick | 28 |
Exelby | 11 | Schneider | 26 |
Bogosian | 8 | Bpgosian | 6 |
Conclusion: Whether we look at Plus/Minus or Shot Differential the stats indicate that Havelid performs about the same whether he is with Enstrom or apart from him. Enstrom on the other hand puts up even better numbers while paired with different partners in terms of team goal and shot differential.