Friday, January 24, 2025

Do you know your defensive defensemen? The ‘Who Didn’t He Play For?’ quiz returns

Folks, it’s time to honor the noble defensive defenseman.

I don’t mean with a new trophy, although that idea popped up again recently. Sharks’ blueliner Marc-Edouard Vlasic is the latest to call for a new award, an idea that Daniel wrote about last season. You can understand why a guy like Vlasic would be on board, but a lot of fans seem to like the idea too, especially as the Norris Trophy becomes the domain of guys who produce offense. Having a Rod Langway Trophy, or whatever else you would call it, would be a way to recognize the guys who put the actual “defense” in defenseman.

But that’s not the honor we’re awarding today, because I don’t have to ability to create new NHL trophies. (As much as I’ve tried.) No, we’ll have to settle for the greatest honor that I can bestow – their own version of the “Who Didn’t He Play For?” quiz.

This is the quiz where I give you a player and four teams, and you have to tell me which one he never played a game for. In the past, we’ve covered everything from Hall-of-Famers to Conn Smythe winners to some of history’s top goalies.

This one might be tricky, since a lot of the league’s best defensive defensemen don’t bounce around all that much, a fact we were reminded of in last week’s rundown of teams’ games played leaders. But for every Ken Daneyko or Chris Phillips or even Vlasic himself who’s a franchise lifer, there’s a journeyman who travels from town to town, clearing pucks and cross-checking spinal cords. Not every stay-at-home guy gets to stay at home, you could say. Let’s give those players their due, while seeing if you really know and appreciate the noble defensive defenseman as well as you should.

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