Writing a piece defending Adam Fox has been on my mind since February. I tried following the Four Nations tournament, but a lack of clear-headedness made it challenging to focus on what I wanted to communicate. I also wasn’t sure if I was just reacting to a short-term trend in the fanbase, but as the season progressed, it became clear that this was a widespread topic and would likely linger throughout the offseason.
I tried again shortly after my piece on Alexis Lafreniere’s future, but again I was frustrated that I even had to consider writing about defending Adam Fox. Hopefully, the third time’s the charm. Defending Adam Fox shouldn’t have been needed, though I want to give fair warning that this piece is heavily based on analytics, but the stats used here are pretty straightforward: expected goals and real goals for and against.
“Guys love playing against Fox in the playoffs” – Colby Cohen
This quote from Colby Cohen on the Daily Faceoff Podcast post-Four Nations is a good place to start. It illustrates a common misconception about Fox coming out of the Four Nations –that when the pace picks up, Fox drops the ball– and it simply is not rooted in evidence. A look under the hood at Adam Fox’s historical playoff data provides the counterpoint.
Let’s start with the 5v5 expected goals data. I will acknowledge that it is entirely possible that players feel that because they outchanced Fox in the playoffs at 5v5, particularly during the 21/22 run, that means he is easier to play against at that time of year. But they are simply coming to the wrong conclusion.
They were not winning territory in those minutes because they were playing Adam Fox; they were winning territory in those minutes because they were playing against the worst – yet somehow relatively successful – 5v5 possession team in modern playoff history. As we can see, the Rangers were considerably worse in the minutes Fox did not play.
And while NHL front offices have been forced to utilize analytical measures like expected goals, I am aware many fans, players, and even GMs find them dubious. Even I find certain teams’ 5v5 xGF measures suspect at times, looking at you, Carolina. Expected metrics are a tool, and should not be taken as gospel. So let’s talk about a stat that nobody can argue the legitimacy of, real goals for and against, which you can find on the right side of the above chart.
While Igor Shesterkin being the best playoff goaltender of his generation is a huge contributor to the Rangers holding their own in this category, it is clear that Adam Fox has dominated the real goals share at 5v5 in all 3 of his playoff runs.
The second table shows Fox’s results at All Situations (All Sits), which includes data from all strengths throughout these playoff runs. While the Rangers were still expected to lose these minutes as a team in all three playoff runs, Fox dominated them due to his relatively superior 5v5 play, coupled with his role as a top 3 power-play quarterback in the league.
Once again, when we look at the real goals scored in all situations, Fox wins his minutes by a HUGE margin. It would appear that the players Cohen spoke to just like picking the puck out of their own net. It is also worth reminding people that his results from the most impressive playoff run, 2023/24, came while playing on one leg thanks to dirty hits from Sebastian Aho and Nick Jensen.
While the data paints a clear picture of Fox’s positive impact, it’s also crucial to acknowledge factors that might be influencing perceptions of his performance. I believe the most influential factor is the changing performance of his defensive partner, Ryan Lindgren.
Defending Adam Fox includes the decline of Ryan Lindgren
I love Ryan Lindgren. I went to bat for him in 2018 after the Rangers traded for him when other Rangers prospect writers were dogging on his viability as a prospect. I was always a believer that he could handle top-pairing minutes in the NHL. And for a few years, he did!
But like so many physical Rangers defensemen, injuries took their toll on him, and the Rangers should have moved on last summer. Drury and Laviolette’s decision to force him back into the lineup this season before he fully recovered from his jaw injury was a disservice to the team, Lindgren, and Fox. His decline has been precipitous and is a clear contributor to why some in the fanbase have been hating on Fox this season.
I also feel like after February, every time Fox was on the ice for a goal, it got clipped and shared on social media as evidence that he isn’t good. Newsflash: Every top defenseman in the league is on the ice for goals against, yet receives none of the same scrutiny, and none of them have been playing with the anchor that Lindgren became in his final two seasons.
At 5v5, presumptive Norris winner Cale Makar only bettered Fox’s on-ice goal differential by 3 goals – 22 (Makar) vs 19 (Fox) – and Fox played 6 fewer games and was not playing with Devon Toews. Makar had a better season than Fox – I am not trying to imply otherwise – only that Fox wasn’t a liability.
While the eye test showed a player who struggled at times with both injury and the burden of a bad partner, from an analytical perspective, this was still unequivocally an elite season by Fox. He again dominated the 5v5 real goal share at 58.3%, and was again expected to win those minutes with an xGF% of 55.4%. That is the highest expected goal share at 5v5 of his entire career, ahead of his Norris-winning season (54.4%) and the 2022/23 season (53.9%), when he was robbed of his second Norris by a de facto forward in Erik Karlsson.
Fox did this on a Rangers team that produced the worst off-ice expected goal share of his career, sitting at 43.9% when he was not on the ice, giving Fox a relative xGF differential of 11.5%, the best of his career. For those struggling to keep up with the phrases here, put simply, the Rangers were an unmitigated disaster when Fox was off the ice, and won their minutes by every measure when he jumped back over the boards.
I typically try to be measured in my writing when approaching opposing viewpoints, but I want my take here to be clear. A portion of this fanbase’s growing contempt for him is misguided, and defending Adam Fox should not have been needed. It is not backed by convincing evidence, and the criticism I see almost always fails to account for the objective fact that Fox’s defensive partners over the past two seasons have been players ill-suited for the rigors a top-pairing defenseman faces, as well as the fact that he has played through multiple injuries.
Fox has sacrificed his health to play key minutes for this team over the past three playoff runs, and it is frustrating that it seems to go unappreciated. We need to back our elite players, not attack them. Adam Fox is closer to being a lock to have his number retired than he is to being anything resembling a problem for the future of this team.
Sources: xG and Goal data from Moneypuck, Data Visualizations from JFresh
