Kings v5 GM
Joined: Feb. 2018
Posts: 4,767
Likes: 1,625
I don't understand it. His main defense partners this season have been far better when they aren't playing with him. All of the defenseman he plays with (I'm talking about Dahlin, Risto, McCabe and Joki because they all have a large enough sample size with him) all do way better when they aren't playing with him. while they are paired with him their corsi, xG and goal share all drop off quite a bit when they are on the ice with him. All 4 of them are significantly better when they aren't on the ice with Montour. He consistently gets out shot and out chanced when he's on the ice but Sabers fans on here seem to think he's a good top 4 defenseman for some reason. He's got a 48.5% corsi while being offensively sheltered and has a high PDO so he will come crashing down sooner rather than later. His corsi and xG relative to his teammates is even bad so you can't use the "he's on a bad team" excuse.
I have no idea why they think he's so good. Montour is not good offensively, he is slightly above average defensively but he's offensive impact cancels it out. He's awful on special teams and I mean awful. He's a bad penalty killer and worse on the powerplay. He's got a bad penalty deferential and Evolving-Hockey shows him as being below average GAR. That last sentence was worded poorly but what i'm trying to say is that he has a negative impact on scoring goals. I do like his ability to drive play up the ice but he isn't that good at it. Once he gets in the OZ he doesn't know what to do with it. The most dangerous scoring chances come off the rush- that means you need to exit your own zone with control and enter the OZ with control so you can create a scoring chance that has a higher percentage chance of going in. Most of the time he enters the zone with control and doesn't do anything with it, that creates the same result as dumping it in.
To recap he's got bad a bad corsi and xG meaning he gets out shot, out chanced and out scored when he's on the ice. His Isolated impact is pretty bad, hes useless on special teams, he doesn't have a big impact on scoring goals and his penalty differential is bad. He manages to do this all while playing soft minutes against relatively weak competition. He does have a few tools but nothing that makes him more than a 3rd pair defenseman, especially on a team that wants to contend. The negatives outweigh the positives by a ton but Sabers fans here still seem to think he's worth ~5 million and is a top 4 defenseman. Just because a guy plays in the top 4 doesn't mean he's a top 4 defenseman. Sure he puts up points but points aren't important for defensemen, sure he is decent at driving the play up the ice (not spectacular by any means but he's ok) but he's so bad in every other area of the ice.
On a separate note you should check out his Skatr chart. It really emphasizes my point.