FanHouse Johnny Oduya

It's officially the offseason, meaning the time is right to look into the future. We continue our division-by-division preview of the potential wheeling and dealing with the Atlantic Division.

It will be an interesting summer for the five teams in the Atlantic. Four teams made the playoffs, including the eventual Stanley Cup champion, and the one team that didn't make it -- the New York Islanders -- holds the first pick in Friday's draft, which isn't a bad consolation prize. All around it was a pretty successful season for these five teams.

As Gretz mentioned earlier, Christian Hanson scored his first goal in the NHL in Tuesday night's 4-1 win over the Devils. Below: visual documentation of said happening. Hanson carries the puck along the boards and feeds Jason Blake, then makes Johnny Oduya look foolish by crossing up the defender and finding a soft spot right where Martin Brodeur kicks the rebound of Blake's initial shot. A pretty play, for sure.

Costly win of sorts for the Ducks on Friday, as they lost Teemu Selanne to a leg injury in the first period when it appeared his own skate cut his left leg. He was helped off the ice and didn't return to the game. If he's out for any extended period of time it would obviously be a tremendous blow to Anaheim's offense, as the 38-year old forward leads the team in goals (14) and is third on the team in points (27).

As for the game itself, Anaheim took it, 3-2, in a shootout, thanks to some stellar goaltending from Jonas Hiller, who stopped 51 shots in regulation and overtime, and all three shots he faced in the shootout. The 51 saves actually matched a franchise record, so, way to go Jonas.

The Ducks special teams provided the offense, as Rob Neidermeyer picked up a shorthanded goal with 20 seconds to play in the first period, while Corey Perry notched a power play goal midway through the second period, giving the Ducks a 2-0 lead.

That lead would hold up until the third, when Kyle Brodziak put Edmonton on the board at the 6:32 mark, while Erik Cole tied the game seven minutes later with a power play goal.

Perry scored the only goal in the shootout, giving Anaheim the win.

Johnny Oduya has a really cool name, but that doesn't get the New Jersey Devils defensemen all that much attention. After being selected in the 7th round by the Capitals way back in 2001, the Caps gave up on him fairly quickly and he headed back to Europe, probably thinking he'd never get a shot in the NHL.

The New Jersey Devils, in search of a cheap defenseman to plug into their blue line, ala Brian Rafalski, signed Oduya away from the Swedish league, and the bullish defenseman has quietly become one of the better defensive defensemen in the NHL.

Oduya had 26 points and was +27 (eighth best in the league) in 75 games last season, suggesting he is a pretty solid piece of work. There is more, however, than meets the eye.

One of my favorite bloggers, the man who runs The Puck Stops Here, crunched some numbers to come up with an Adjusted +/- stat. Basically, how does a player affect the game while he is on the ice compared to when he is off the ice?

The top defenseman on the list? Johnny Oduya! That's right, he ranks even higher than pretty boy Nicklas Lidstrom.

Does this mean that Oduya is the NHL's best defensive defenseman? No. The stat does have flaws, but it does highlight the fact that Oduya's defensive play is excellent, and his effect on the New Jersey Devils is very much understated.

And for all of this, the New Jersey Devils had to pay a paltry $600,000 in salary to Oduya last season. Kinda makes that Jeff Finger contract look even worse than it already does.