Earlier this month Magness Mayhem surveyed the DU hockey team about various player characteristics.

Fourteen of the 25 players on the roster responded (56 percent) through an online survey. All results were anonymous. I’d like to thank the DU players for taking the time to take the survey.

I’d also like to thank the following sponsors for helping make this possible:

Kostoff and Co. at Nova Home Loans – The Right Loan, The Right Lender

Pesta Chiropractic – We’ve Got Your Back, with offices in Centennial and Westminster

SouthEast Auto – Trusted since 1958, and just 2 miles east of the DU campus

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What follows is fourth of five parts of the survey, along some accompanying analysis.

Part 4: Defense, positioning and leadership

16 – Which player is the best at forcing turnovers?

Logan O’Connor – 9 (64 percent)

Troy Terry – 2 (14 percent)

Henrik Borgstrom, Tariq Hammond and Adam Plant also received a vote.

Behind the numbers: O’Connor’s speed, strength and tenacity causes problems for opponents all over the ice. Terry probably doesn’t encounter many players who have better hands than he does, and he is a huge threat to begin a counter attack.

17 – Which player is the most positionally sound?

Adam Plant – 4 (29 percent)

Tanner Jaillet – 3 (21 percent)

Logan O’Connor and Colin Staub – 2 (14 percent)

Michael Davies, Dylan Gambrell and Blake Hillman also received a vote.

Behind the numbers: All of the players mentioned are penalty kill mainstays. This speaks to several things – reliability, intelligence, willingness to play a team-first game.

18 – Which player is consistently the hardest worker off the ice?

Colin Staub – 6 (43 percent)

Dylan Gambrell and Tariq Hammond – 2 (14 percent)

Henrik Borgstrom, Rudy Junda, Logan O’Connor and Ryan Orgel each received a vote.

Behind the numbers: While many of these categories might be obvious to outsiders, this is one offers more insight. Staub is extremely well respected by his teammates and coaches, and here is one of many reasons. Hammond’s work ethic has been well chronicled in his recovery from a devastating leg injury. There can be a tendency to think highly skilled players (Gambrell, Borgstrom) don’t have to work hard to stay at the top of their game – not true.

19 – Which player is the most resilient?

Tariq Hammond – 5 (36 percent)

Rudy Junda, Logan O’Connor and Colin Staub – 2 (14 percent)

Liam Finlay, Dylan Gambrell and Adam Plant each received a vote.

Behind the numbers: I expected Hammond to win in a landslide. Though he won’t say much about it, his battles to just to walk normally after his injury, much less skate and skate in NCAA competition have been monumental. That said, Junda has hung tough for four years, and it’s great to see him getting rewarded with playing time. Staub and O’Connor are far more important to the team’s make-up than many might realize. A hallmark of coach Jim Montgomery‘s teams has been having a slew of swiss-army knives on the roster, whether it’s them or Evan Janssen, Matt Marcinew and Emil Romig or their predecessors.

20 – Which player consistently leads by example the most?

Dylan Gambrell – 8 (57 percent)

Tariq Hammond – 5 (36 percent)

Colin Staub also received a vote.

Behind the numbers: Actions speak louder than words, and this might be the ultimate compliment you can pay a hockey player. All three players on this list are exemplary, and there are several more on the Pioneers’ roster the same can be said of.

Previously:

Part 1: Skating and strength

Part 2: Shooting and stick handling

Part 3: Passing, vision, hockey sense and face-offs

Coming up:

Part 5: Breaking down the numbers

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Copyright First Line Editorial 2017