dylan mcilrath

Photo: Noah K. Murray / USA Today Sports

One of the many questions coming into the season, once the roster was finalized, was how Dylan McIlrath was going to fare in the NHL. The former first round pick fell from grace rather quickly, as questions about skating filled column inches, blog pages, and Twitter feeds. Folks were calling him a bust as late as this past draft. He was by far the biggest question mark coming into the season.

Fast forward to the beginning of December, and folks are clamoring for him to be an everyday player in the lineup at the expense of someone else on the blue line. While the conversation among fans has shifted towards who he can replace, and that conversation takes many forms, the one conversation that appears to have ended is whether or not he belongs in the NHL. He may not be a top pairing defenseman, but McIlrath has proven he belongs.

During last year’s cuppa, McIlrath routinely took himself out of position to deliver a big hit. Couple that with his weak skating, and it’s a recipe for disaster. After extensive work with Jeff Beukeboom in the AHL, McIlrath no longer has this issue. He’s still not the best skater, and he would be a poor matchup against the Tyler Johnson’s of the world, he compensates by taking great angles to the puck and puck carrier, limiting space around him. He also uses his long reach and active stick to disrupt rushes and board play, as seen below.

McIlrath smash? Nay. McIlrath smother.

Following McIlrath on his man (Alex Chiasson, #90 on Ottawa in white), McIlrath initially jumps in to poke the puck away behind the net. Then if you watch him closely, you see him keep his head on a swivel and stick with Chiasson as he circles to the slot and then the boards. He then jumps the pass route with his reach, freeing the puck for Viktor Stalberg to transition to offense with three Senators pinned in the offensive zone. Above is an example of perfect defensive hockey.

While the above may admittedly be cherry picking on one great play, his steadiness in the defensive zone shows up in the numbers as well. McIlrath, in a small sample size of nine games, is the team leader in Corsi-For at 52.14%. He is one of just two Rangers blue liners (Keith Yandle) above the 50% barrier. Some of that does need to be taken with a grain of salt, since he is also third on the team in offensive zone starts at 55%, behind Yandle and Dan Boyle.

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Courtesy of war-on-ice (click to enlarge)

From the above usage chart, we can see that McIlrath does get favorable zone time. The y-axis is a bit misleading though. It represents quality of teammates –which is more of a driver of future success than quality of competition– and the lower the bubble, the “worse” the teammates. This is based on the premise that the better players get more ice time, but McIlrath plays all of his time with Yandle. Since Yandle doesn’t get as much ice time as he should (a topic we will cover later), McIlrath also appears lower.

*-If you want to use competition as your y-axis (link here), just note the only major difference is that Boyle comes down to McIlrath’s territory.

With Kevin Klein out for an extended period of time, the Rangers were forced to give McIlrath full time duties, instead of platooning him with Boyle. So far, it has paid off in spades. The McIlrath of today looks less like Stu Bickel and more like Mike Sauer. He’s earned the right to continue playing and has earned more responsibility. Keep testing him and see what he can do. One thing’s for sure, he’s shed the “bust” moniker.

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