Is Noah Hanifin A No-Brainer For Team USA?
Credit: Stephen R. Sylvanie-Imagn Images
The name of the game for the Vegas Golden Knights is winning, and they’re doing that quite well, thank you. But the game within the game for many of the league’s top players is their audition for the Four Nations Faceoff in February. The line for Team USA is out the door, with some great players like Matt Boldy (16 points in 15 games), Brock Boeser (11 points in 12 games), and Alex Tuch (14 points in 16 games) left off NHL.com’s most recent roster projections on the forward side.
As for the blueliners, Vegas’ Noah Hanifin also found himself outside the projected bubble, but he’s still very much in play. NHL.com’s Gary Lawless wrote last week: “Four Nations Faceoff rosters will be announced on Dec. 2 and his play of late has pushed Hanifin into the conversation. The buzzword for management groups is ‘watchlist.’ Teams have their locks and then a group of players they are monitoring to fill the remaining positions. Hanifin is a watchlist player for Team USA.”
And to that, we say: Good. He should be.
Hanifin has been in a Golden Knights sweater for just 34 games, but in that time (not to mention the times the Knights played against his Calgary Flames), we’ve seen enough. He does it all. Hanifin has 20 points in those 34 games in Vegas (a 48-point full-season pace) and is doing that without top power play time. He’s big, he can defend, he can move the puck, he can shoot, he can kill penalties. All this happens while he eats 22 minutes and 20 seconds a night. What more do you want?
"Slides it left, Hanifin — score!"
"The Knights have the lead back 3-2 with 48 seconds to play!
Noah Hanifin pots his second goal of the period to put Vegas ahead in the final minute of regulation. pic.twitter.com/Jkgvay58AL
— Golden Knights Radio (@VGKRadioNetwork) November 7, 2024
The answer is “nothing” but the problem for Team USA GM Bill Guerin is the sheer number of defensemen he gets to pick from that you can’t ask anything more from.
“We find ourselves laughing sometimes because we’ve been nitpicking over players we’d all kill to have on our NHL rosters,” Guerin told Lawless. “The depth is incredible.”
So, where might Hanifin fit into this pecking order?
Well, looking at the seven defensemen on NHL.com’s projected roster, Hanifin isn’t going to displace John Carlson, Adam Fox, Brock Faber, or Charlie MacAvoy. Those guys play the right side of the blueline, so the real competition for Hanifin to pass up is Quinn Hughes, Jaccob Slavin, and Zach Werenski.
Even then… it’s tricky. Hughes is the reigning Norris Trophy winner and presumptively, Team USA’s top power play option. Slavin has been in the top 20 in Norris voting for eight straight seasons and has a reputation for being one of the NHL’s top defensive defensemen. So that leaves us with Werenski as the player Hanifin has to knock off.
At first glance, Werenski stands out as a player that you pick if you’re trying to build an All-Star Team, rather than a team to win a best-on-best tournament. Werenski had 25 goals and 113 points in 151 games from 2021-22 to 2023-24, a 0.75 points per game average that puts him 11th among defensemen with 100-plus games in that time. But defensively? He’s been a train wreck.
Courtesy of Evolving Hockey
Though, how much of that has to do with being stuck on an awful Columbus Blue Jackets team? Maybe quite a bit, if this season is to be believed. Not that the Jackets are good — they’re in last place — but they’re defending hard, and so is Werenski. Werenski is controlling 56.8% of the goal share at 5-on-5, as well as 53.5% of the expected goal share. Perhaps more incredibly, in 24 minutes of penalty-killing time, he hasn’t allowed a single goal.
Hanifin has history on his side — since the start of the 2021-22 season, he ranks 41st (of 191 defensemen with 2,000-plus minutes) in controlling 54.6% of the goal share and 30th with 53.9% of the expected goal share at 5-on-5. What might not be on his side? Werenski is being coached by Dean Evason, who helmed Guerin’s Minnesota Wild for three years. If Evason’s got Guerin’s ear on Werenski, that might be a tiebreaker, even if Hanifin’s track record is better.
Courtesy of Evolving Hockey
Who knows what Guerin will ultimately value, but if the decision comes down to Werenski vs. Hanifin, it’s a much safer bet to go with someone with Hanifin’s track record. Hanifin has much more high-level experience playing on top teams, is versatile enough to put in any situation or role, and has years of evidence of being a top-flight, top-pairing defenseman. It’s a close call, but Hanifin over Werenski is the right call.
Up Next