Klingberg's early offensive output has him neck-and-neck with some of the NHL's elite offensive defensemen
John Klingberg was drafted in the 5th round of the 2010 NHL Entry Draft but didn't make his NHL debut until 2014-15. From 2010-11 to 2013-14, he spent the majority of his time in the Swedish circuit before joining the Texas Stars of the AHL at the end of the 2013-14 season.
Klingberg started the 2014-15 season with the Texas Stars but only lasted 10 games before getting his NHL call-up after scoring 4 goals and 12 points. In 65 games during his rookie season, Klingberg scored 11 goals and 40 points and finished 5th amongst rookies for the Calder Trophy.
In fact, in his first 3 seasons with the Dallas Stars, Klingberg was exceptionally gifted offensively as he scored 34 goals and 147 points in just 221 games. The following season he exploded for a career-high 67 points and finished 6th in Norris Trophy voting for the second time in 3 years.
The 211 points that he scored within his first 300 games was the second most at the time behind only Erik Karlsson. 5 years later and Klingberg is still top-5 on that list as Cale Makar, Quinn Hughes, and Adam Fox have leapfrogged both he and Karlsson.
Makar, Fox, and Karlsson are all elite defensemen and feature as the last 3 winners of the Norris Trophy dating back to 2020-21. Hughes on the other hand is a near point per game defenseman who has 144 points in his last 155 games while playing 25 minutes a night and improving defensively on a yearly basis.
If Klingberg can turn back the clock and bring his Dallas Stars' version to Toronto, then the Leafs will be in for a treat. His defensive deficiencies are known and it'll gravely depend on who his partner is for him to truly succeed.
Tony DeAngelo is a great example of an offensive defenseman having his deficiencies either improve or masked by his partner. In his one season with the Carolina Hurricanes he scored 10 goals and 51 points in just 64 games, was a plus-30, and skated nearly 20 minutes a night. This coming from a player who was -19 throughout his first 200+ games and was a giveaway machine with 139 between just 2018-19 and 2019-20.
Playing with Jaccob Slavin helped him immensely and while Slavin's don't just grow on trees, the Maple Leafs don't need an elite superstar defenseman to make Klingberg look good. T.J. Brodie or Jake McCabe will suffice as they would allow Klingberg to be the smooth skating, end-to-end player that he's comfortable in being, while being the more defensive minded anchor and the last line of defense in front of their goaltender.
Even with a rocky season in 2022-23 with Anaheim and Minnesota, he still put up 33 points in 67 games. Over his career he has 407 points in 619 games with 374 of them coming in 8 seasons with Dallas - while averaging 22:59 a game and sporting a decent plus-minus for most of his tenure.
| POLL | ||
JUILLET 16 | 228 ANSWERS Klingberg's early offensive output has him neck-and-neck with some of the NHL's elite offensive defensemen Will John Klingberg exceed 50 points with the Leafs this season? | ||
| Absolutely | 83 | 36.4 % |
| Not a chance | 40 | 17.5 % |
| I think he'll be right around the 50-point mark | 105 | 46.1 % |
| List of polls | ||
