slavin isnt a top pairing defenseman.

He is 10th among D this season in GAR and 11th among D for WAR this season, and he locked mcdavids ass up so yes he is

Jaccob Slavin is an elite defensive defenseman and a clear #1D. He is also significantly worse defensively than Niklas Hjalmarsson. All of these things are true.

"Brett Pesce has also entered the chat"

slavin is off to a good start to this year, sure, but he has never been a #1D

His 16/17 season was the 7th best WAR season for any defenseman in the league in the last 5 years

Slavin's 8th among defenders in GAR since the start of the 16-17 season. He's nearly 11 goals above rank 31 (the theoretical definitive cutoff of a #1D), and that raises to 14 goals above number 13 with a 4000 minute TOI cutoff. He's done that with a respectable 5v5 points/60 of 0.93 (57th among D in this timeframe, right above Josh Manson). His on-ice score and venue-adjusted xGF% ranks ninth among all D with over 1000 minutes in that span. He ranks in the 92nd percentile in posession exit% and 95th percentile in breaking up zone entries. He's a number 1 D, no question.

Where do you get numbers for possession exits and zone entries, I can't find them on like EH or NST

As a Carolina fan this is basically porn for me

Out of curiosity do you think Pesce or Slavin's numbers look better

I know by watching Slavin looks better, and his numbers are great but I thin pesce is with him

To be honest they look pretty similar. Pesce's raw on-ice stuff is better but Slavin is better in all the individual areas other than entry defense. Offhand, I'd say they're comparable overall, Slavin's better with the puck and Pesce's better without it, though you can't really go wrong with either of them.