Part two of the new OCPR (Obe?s Comprehensive Player Rankings) showcases defensemen. Defense is probably the most difficult position to properly rank players, because their impact goes well beyond goals, assists and plus/minus, the simple objective statistics. They have the primary responsibility in their own end, and best ones log the most minutes in the entire NHL. In order to establish a harmony between offensive and defensive stats for defensemen, it made sense to draw from as wide of an array of stats as possible. So the OCPR-Defense derives its ranking and point total from the following stats: - Goals, assists, plus/minus, shooting percentage, shifts per game, ice time per game, power play goals and assists, short-handed goals and assists, hits, blocked shots, giveaways, takeaways, and minor penalties taken. Ideally, GMs would want to have four defensemen in the top-100 on their team. The reason being, each team aims to solidify its ?top four? on the blue-line, constructing two tough pairings of defensemen to go against the opposition?s top two offensive scoring lines. Theoretically speaking, there should be 120 of these ?top four defensemen? (multiply four defensemen by 30 NHL teams) in the NHL. The Tampa Bay Lightning only had one in the top-100 last season, Kurtis Foster, and that could be a big reason they finished 26th in goals against. The Colorado Avalanche led the way with six guys in the top-100. Below you will find the top-50 ranked defensemen last season, led by Mike Green ? whose offensive dominance from the blue-line could not be outdone. Even though he isn?t the strongest defensively, he had adequate stats in all other areas to maintain his top spot over Norris Trophy winner Duncan Keith. 2009-10 Rankings with Point Total 1. Mike Green, WSH ? 244.51 2. Duncan Keith, CHI ? 220.06 3. Chris Pronger, PHI ? 207.91 4. Mark Streit, NYI ? 187.21 5. Dan Boyle, SJS ? 185.92 6. Niklas Lidstrom, DET ? 182.23 7. Drew Doughty, LAK ? 177.47 8. Christian Ehrhoff, VAN ? 176.43 9. Kimmo Timonen, PHI ? 169.47 10. Stephane Robidas, DAL ? 164.54 11. Dennis Seidenberg, FLA/BOS ? 163.95 12. Scott Niedermayer, ANA ? 163.57 13. Shea Webber, NSH ? 162.57 14. Tobias Enstrom, ATL ? 161.83 15. Andy Greene, NJD ? 158.15 16. Pavel Kubina, ATL ? 157.25 17. Marc Staal, NYR ? 156.87 18. Brent Seabrook, CHI ? 156.54 19. Mark Giordano, CGY ? 156.00 20. Andrei Markov, MTL ? 155.40 21. Sergei Gonchar, PIT ? 155.09 22. Keith Yandle, PHX ? 151.97 23. Zdeno Chara, BOS ? 150.17 24. Joni Pitkanen, CAR ? 149.83 25. Matt Carle, PHI ? 148.44 26. Brian Campbell, CHI ? 148.42 27. Ryan Suter, NSH ? 147.19 28. Tyler Myers, BUF ? 146.74 29. Kyle Quincey, COL ? 146.67 30. Brian Rafalski, DET ? 145.42 31. Erik Johnson, STL ? 142.45 32. Jeff Schultz, WSH ? 139.58 33. Kyle Cumiskey, COL ? 138.21 34. Lubomir Visnovsky, EDM/ANA ? 137.90 35. Dan Girardi, NYR ? 136.67 36. Marek Zidlicky, MIN ? 134.82 37. Ian White, TOR/CGY ? 132.60 38. Fedor Tyutin, CBJ ? 132.10 39. Sami Salo, VAN ? 132.04 40. John-Michael Liles, COL ? 130.64 41. Tom Poti, WSH ? 129.42 42. Dion Phaneuf, CGY/TOR ? 129.01 43. Tim Gleason, CAR ? 128.32 44. Michal Rozsival, NYR ? 126.92 45. Bryan McCabe, FLA ? 125.75 46. Adrian Aucoin, PHX ? 125.00 47. Michael Del Zotto, NYR ? 124.51 48. Dan Hamhuis, NSH ? 124.43 49. Ed Jovanovski, PHX ? 123.76 50. Alex Goligoski, PIT ? 123.32 There were three teams to finish the season without a defenseman in the top-50: Edmonton Oilers, Ottawa Senators and Tampa Bay Lightning. Visnovsky (34th) began the season with the Oilers, but was traded to Anaheim for the younger Ryan Whitney (ranked 73rd, 111.53 points). Their top defenseman to play the entire year with the club was Tom Gilbert (82nd, 107.07 points). Ottawa?s top defenseman last year was Chris Phillips (76th, 111.02 points), but they got a big upgrade by signing free agent Sergei Gonchar (21st). While Anton Volchenkov was highly regarded during free agency, his 100.03 points was only good enough for 97th because he offers virtually nothing on the offensive end. Kurtis Foster (56th, 119.50 points) was Tampa?s top blue-liner last season, but he signed a free agent contract with Edmonton, giving the Oilers a significant upgrade on the back-end. Tampa bettered themselves in the offseason by signing Pavel Kubina (16th) and will look to internal improvements from youngsters Mike Lundin (101st, 97.82 points) and Victor Hedman (144th, 69.53 points). Tomas Kaberle was a popular name this summer, with a number of teams alleging to have interest in trading for his services. While offensively he is easily a top-4 defenseman, his below-average play defensively causes his overall ranking to suffer; he only rated as number 72 in the league, with 111.73 points. Much was made of Pittsburgh losing Gonchar, but they did replace him with Paul Martin (only 22 games played, didn?t make the list but should be a top-50 defender this season) and Zbynek Michalek (58th, 117.71 points). And don?t forget to take into account Gonchar?s age (36-years-old) and change of team that will likely cause a downgrade in production. Changes of note for the coming year: The 11th ranked Seidenberg was unhappy with the offers he received and bolted to the KHL, and this ranking seems to give evidence to him being underappreciated; the 12th ranked Niedermayer retired; Kubina (from ATL to TBL), Gonchar (PIT to OTT) and Hamhuis (NSH to VAN) changed addresses in free agency. To check out the 2009-10 Goalie Rankings click here, and the final Team Rankings click here. Nick can be reached via email [email protected] or on twitter @NickObergan