Scott Harrington
Recency bias initially dragged down the grade for Scott Harrington after a terrible performance against the Toronto Maple Leafs. But looking back at all 17 games Harry has played in this year, and we see a decent performance from the left shot d-man.
Harry has filled in nicely on the third pair alongside several different partners as Seth Jones was out at the beginning of the year and as Torts continued to shuffle pairings, he has landed alongside Zach Werenski.
As odd as it sounds, Zach’s poor defensive performance has not helped Harrington and has hurt in our evaluation of Scott. Although he is a +3 on the year, Scott’s corsi is the lowest on the team among players averaging over 10 minutes of ice time a game at 40.9%. That isn’t going to cut it.
Scott does have four points this year though and has looked good when he jumps up into the play in the offensive zone. But his play in his own end has to take two or three steps up. 17 games isn’t enough to say that Harrington can’t and won’t get the job done on the third pair, but it’s close. If Scott doesn’t turn it around soon, we may see Dean Kukan, Adam Clendening, or Gabriel Carlsson get a shot alongside Werenski.