Will the Adam Fox trade be the best ever?

How good can Fox be?

While it is too early to know how good Adam Fox will be, all of the signs are that he will be developing into an elite NHL defenseman.   While he has been overshadowed by fellow rookies Quinn Hughes and Cale Makar, he has a pretty spectacular debut.

Fox is 15th overall in scoring among NHL defensemen with eight goals and 42 points.  His plus/minus rating of +22 is seventh best.    He is doing this despite being on the second power play unit for the Blueshirts.  He has 29 even strength points, two fewer than Makar and one more than Hughes despite playing fewer 5v5 minutes than both of his rivals.

Don’t forget that both Makar and Hughes had a taste of NHL hockey in 2018-19.  Hughes got into five regular season games that season and Makar played in ten playoff games.  It took Fox a few games to get his footing in the NHL and he played as many as 19 minutes in a game only once in the first 12 games.

While it is way too early to make bold statements about where he will end up,  he could be the best Ranger defenseman since Brian Leetch.  Consider this.  In 70 games, Fox’s point total is one less than the best Ryan McDonagh could do in eight years in New York.

Leetch also played in an NHL when there was much more scoring  than now.  During his tenure in the NHL, he was one of four defensemen to score over 100 points in a season and 90 points was reached by defensemen ten times.  Since 2000, Brent Burns has been the top scoring defenseman in the NHL with 83 points in 2018-19 and he is one of only three blueliners to exceed the 80 point mark in 20 seasons.