Chris Tanev isn’t your typical shutdown defenceman.
Undersized by NHL standards, especially for the role of a defensive defenceman, Tanev is listed at 185 pounds. The 25-year-old Vancouver Canuck doesn’t have a blistering slapshot, he can go weeks without throwing a hit, and he has never dropped the gloves in his NHL career.
Focus on what Tanev doesn’t do at your own peril, because what he has done is quietly develop into an ace defensive player — even a prototype for the next generation of defensive blue-liners in the NHL.
Tanev’s ascension has been as unlikely as it has been unorthodox. Almost out of hockey a decade ago, Tanev was judged too small to compete against the best players his age. While his stature nearly cost him his career before it started, his experience as an undersized player has evolved into something of an adaptive advantage to hear him tell it.
“I was a smaller kid growing up so the way I tried to play was to think the game,” Tanev told Sportsnet on Wednesday. “I was always the smallest kid on my team, so I tried to play smart hockey and read situations.”
Too small to overpower anyone at lower levels of hockey, Tanev learned how to use quick feet and quicker wits to his advantage. Even now that he’s facing the opposition’s best on a nightly basis, Tanev relies on an ability to anticipate the play and recognize some of the subtle, predictable patterns within the game.
“I’m always trying to think about the next play or the next move or what the other guy is going to do when he has the puck, or where they could potentially move in,” Tanev explained.
“I’m not going to try and run people and fight people and play overly physical. I’m not that big of a guy, compared to some. So I’ve got to try and use my stick and body position and that sort of thing to be able to stop opponents. That’s how I grew up playing, so it’s second nature to me now.”
Out-thinking the world’s most ingenious offensive players is a neat trick and it’s paid off for Tanev. His tidy, quiet defensive game is the reason Vancouver locked him up with a lucrative five-year contract extension worth a reported $22.25 million this week.
It’s a big contract for an understated player, but the underlying numbers would suggest that Tanev is a slam-dunk bet. Actually, the shot-based metrics would suggest that he’s been the single most impactful defensive player in hockey this season.
With Tanev on the ice, the Canucks have surrendered 8.5 fewer unblocked shot attempts against rated per 60 minutes of 5-on-5 ice-time — a massive number and the best such mark among regular top-four defencemen in the league by a wide margin.
He’s also been the best suppressor of unblocked shot attempts among all regular first-unit penalty-killing defencemen. It helps that he’s probably the league’s best shot-blocker, the NHL’s unofficial 61st goaltender.
There’s nothing hyperbolic about that statement. Tanev has managed to personally block 14.4 percent of his opponents’ shot attempts, a comparable number to that managed by NHL goaltenders in the mid-80s, and the best ratio in the league currently:
It’s not just pucks that ricochet off of Tanev at a league-leading rate. The undersized defender is also one of the most frequently-hit players in the sport. That’s all part of outsmarting the opposition though; sometimes –- even frequently — you have to take the hit to make the play.
“Yeah I’ve taken quite a few hits,” Tanev said, “but I’m trying to suck the forwards in as close to me as I can so I can potentially give someone else on my team as much room as possible.”
Last season Tanev led the league in times hit and he’s second among all NHL players in hit absorption at 5-on-5 this season.
“You know what we call that around here?” said Canucks general manager Jim Benning during a phone call on Wednesday. “Mental toughness. (It’s) the ability to take a hit, and hang on to the puck to make a play.
“(Tanev) is mentally tough. He’ll absorb hits, he’ll block shots. So even though he doesn’t have the traditional physical build of, y’know what we would say is an ‘old-school defensive defenceman’ that is physical and hits… he’s able to play a good strong defensive game, plus he gives you the ability to handle the puck and move it out of your own end.
“As a former defenceman I appreciate the way he plays because he’s a fierce competitor and kind of in a non-traditional way.”
Benning believes that the NHL game is continually evolving and that players with Tanev’s skillset are well-suited to the increased emphasis on skating ability and the transitional game. He described Tanev in an interesting way, characterizing him as a ‘transitional defensive defenceman.’
“I think what’s happening now, and I see the game change from year to year, and what’s happened this year is the speed through the neutral zone,” said Benning.
“Defencemen who can turn, go get the puck, and turn it up ice are valuable. You see like a Chris Tanev-type or (Danny) DeKeyser in Detroit kind of fits that type; there’s players around the league that are good defensively but they’re mobile and they transition the puck out of your end fast, and I think that’s the trend for defencemen going forward.”
The first-year Canucks executive also admitted that Tanev’s sterling showing by the underlying numbers impacted the negotiations and the valuation of the three unrestricted years that the Canucks purchased with their recent five-year extension in particular.
“I think (shot-based metrics) have brought attention to the things he does well … The things (he’s good at) now they’re showing up on that stats sheet where in the old days you’d just say, ‘well, he’s got really good hockey sense and he’s smart in his puck moving and positioning and stuff,’ and now there’s a way to measure those types of things,” said Benning.
“So I guess you could say it did to a certain point, but we just look at the value that he has to our team. He plays with Alex Edler in the matchup role, they play against the top lines every night, and we see the value going forward.”
The value going forward, really, is peace of mind.
“Put it this way,” said Benning. “I’ll sleep a little easier at night knowing that Chris is under contract with us for the next five years.”
*Stats in this piece compiled from hockeyanalysis.com, nhl.com, and war-on-ice.com
