As you can tell from the content on this blog, I am a really big fan of statistical analysis and the NHL.  I haven’t blogged in some time simply because I have been deeply engrossed by the 2011 playoffs, where I am lucky enough to say that I am a diehard Bruins fan.

With that in mind, I am not that happy that Zdeno did not get the Norris.  While all of the nominees are deserving, clearly I was hoping that he won.  Given that it is easy enough to hack some data together in R, the code below is a very, and I a mean very, superficial look at the statistics of the upper 50% of 2011 NHL defensemen as defined by games played.  Many people don’t like using plus-minus as a stat, coupled with total time on ice, it’s not a bad place to begin.