It’s more than one game for Weegar: He deserves awards consideration for special season
In the sudden-death randomness of overtime, the Florida Panthers were perhaps just seconds away from falling to the Carolina Hurricanes for the seventh straight time Saturday. MacKenzie Weegar wasn’t going to let it happen.
Vincent Trocheck barreled toward the net and Weegar squared up the Hurricanes forward. He cut in front of Trocheck and delivered his seventh hit of the game to jar the puck away. Seconds later, Aleksander Barkov delivered the Panthers to a 4-3, overtime win in Sunrise.
“That’s a top team in our league. They’ve had our number all year and I just didn’t want to lose,” Weegar said Saturday. “I didn’t want to lose to that team. I wanted to make a statement. If we see them in the playoffs, I want them to know that we can beat you.”
The game-saving hit capped a career performance for the defenseman. Weegar earned a secondary assist on the game-winning goal, giving him a fourth point to tie a franchise record for points by a defenseman in a single game. He scored the opening goal in the first period, then notched three assists on Florida’s final three goals. He added four shots on goal, seven hits, seven blocked shots and four takeaways, and was the Panthers’ most productive skater from an analytic perspective. In his 23 minutes on the ice, Weegar led Florida in expected goals percentage at 80.3 — based on shot volume and quality, Florida was expected to score 1.62 goals and allow 0.4.
It wasn’t just a one-off performance for Weegar. The 27-year-old Canadian has been one of the steadiest defenders in hockey all year long, first serving as the perfect complement to fellow defenseman Aaron Ekblad for 35 games, then somehow elevating his play even further after his usual partner fractured his leg last month.
With seven games left in the 2020-21 NHL season, Weegar is deserving of awards consideration — certainly worth a look for a spot on an end-of-the-year NHL All-Star team and perhaps even for the James Norris Memorial Trophy. After an attention-grabbing weekend, Weegar will continue his final push Monday when the Panthers (31-13-5) begin a four-game road trip against the Nasvhille Predators (26-21-2) at 7 p.m. in Nashville.
“I use the word special not very often,” coach Joel Quenneville said Saturday, “but I thought Weegs was special.”
Weegar elevates play post-Ekblad
For the first 35 games of the season, Weegar and Ekblad formed one of the NHL’s best defensive pairings, and Weegar, although he had a reputation as the pair’s defensive-minded player, had some of Florida’s best possession-time and chance-creation numbers. In those 35 games, Weegar led the Panthers in Fenwick, which tracks all unblocked shot attempts taken while a player in on the ice, and was on the ice for 9.6 shots on goal and 7.1 scoring chances per game — both tops on the team.
In 12 games since, Weegar has improved his Corsi percentage, his Fenwick percentage, his shots percentage and his scoring chances percentage. Simply put, Florida is generating far more chances than its opponents when Weegar is on the ice for 5-on-5 action.
His counting stats have jumped, too. Weegar is tied for third on the team with seven points since Ekblad’s likely season-ending surgery. He also leads the team with 15 blocked shots, is fourth with 23 hits, is tied for fifth with seven takeaways and leads all Florida defensemen with 21 shots on goal.
“When Eky went down, you can’t replace that type of player. All you can do is step up your own game and everyone did,” Barkov said Saturday. “All the defensemen did, all the forwards did and especially Weegs.”
Weegar is among NHL’s best
At the time of his injury, Ekblad was earning major Norris Memorial Trophy consideration, largely because of his incredible offensive contributions — he’s still tied for the league lead in power-play goals among defenseman.
The Norris Trophy tends to favor offensive-minded defensemen, who can put up more traditional NHL statistics. New York Rangers defenseman Adam Fox, who leads all defensemen in points, is probably the frontrunner. Tampa Bay Lightning defenseman Victor Hedman, who’s tied for second, is another perennial contender for the trophy.
Weegar is a step down from most major contenders in counting stats, although he does rank among the top 15 in assists, top 20 in points and top 10 in plus-minus.
The closest thing the NHL has to an all-encompassing metric is goals above replacement, calculated by Evolving-Hockey.com. Weegar stacks up favorably against all of the award’s top contenders.
| Player | Offensive goals above replacement | Defensive goals above replacement | Goals above replacement |
| Mackenzie Weegar, FLA | 3.6 | 6.5 | 10.9 |
| Adam Fox, NYR | 4 | 3.6 | 8.2 |
| Dougie Hamilton, CAR | 7.5 | 0.3 | 6.8 |
| Victor Hedman, TBL | 7.1 | -2.5 | 5.2 |
| Shea Theodore, VGK | 11.7 | -2.8 | 9.7 |
| Darnell Nurse, EDM | 11.6 | -3.8 | 8.1 |
| Cale Makar, COL | 10 | 1 | 13.2 |
| Samuel Girard, COL | 5.6 | 3 | 10.9 |
With 6.2 even strength goals above replacement, Weegar is nearly two goals better than any of his potential Norris peers. Defensive point shares, a Hockey-Reference.com statistic, also looks favorably upon Weegar, who ranks seventh in the league at 3.7.
With Weegar leading the way, the Panthers have gone from the third worst defense last year to the 10th best in 2021.
“He’s had a very strong year,” Quenneville said. “He does over and beyond those type of things that measure great performance.”
This story was originally published April 25, 2021 at 11:54 AM.
