When a defenseman stands 5-foot-11, the first question everyone wants answered is whether he’ll be able to defend at the next level.

After watching Landon Dupont twice this summer, I think that’s the wrong place to start. If you’re looking for reasons to be skeptical of Dupont, I’d spend far less time worrying about his size and a lot more time thinking about his offensive ceiling.

Skating

The skating jumps off the screen immediately. Dupont generates speed effortlessly through his edges and crossovers, gets up to pace in a hurry, and has no issues matching the speed of opposing forwards. Defensively, he’s just as comfortable skating backward as he is moving forward, mirroring attackers and steering them into areas where he wants to engage.

He’s also much more competitive than his frame suggests. Dupont doesn’t avoid contact, retrieves pucks, and isn’t afraid to use his body to separate opponents from the puck. I came away from both viewings feeling very confident in his ability to defend, and that’s not something I’d say just because he’s an exceptional skater. His timing, stick positioning, and willingness to engage all stood out.

The mistakes I did see weren’t really physical limitations. Twice during my two viewings, he made aggressive, defensive plays to break up possession, only to immediately give the puck back because he hadn’t planned the next play. In one instance, he stepped up in the neutral zone, intercepted a pass cleanly, and then tried to dump the puck back into the offensive zone immediately. Instead, it hit the opposing player and turned into a 2-on-1 the other way. Later, he jumped to keep a soft chip inside the offensive blue line, only to turn it over and create another odd-man rush.

Those aren’t plays where he got overpowered. They’re plays where the first decision was excellent and the second one wasn’t.

Outside of that, not much changed between my two viewings. His defensive gap can occasionally get a little loose inside his own zone. Still, once attackers reached the tops of the circles, he consistently closed quickly and disrupted the play before it became dangerous. There were also a couple of communication breakdowns with teammates that led to quality chances against, but those felt more like communication issues than individual defensive shortcomings.

Offensive Game

Offensively, I actually think Dupont is a pretty easy player to describe. If you’ve followed my work before, his offensive game reminded me quite a bit of Ryan Lin. That’s meant as a compliment.

Neither player relies on elite puck-handling or highlight-reel creativity to generate offense. Instead, they attack through timing, smart activations, and efficient puck movement. Dupont is perfectly capable of carrying the puck through the neutral zone, but more often than not, he’s looking to move it quickly to a forward in stride or hit a stretch pass that launches the attack.

His tracking reinforced that impression.

Across my two viewings, he averaged nearly 39 pass attempts per game while completing almost 79%. He generated offense through volume and efficiency rather than manipulation. In fact, he didn’t record a single completed dangerous-area pass in either game. His 30% transition involvement and 57.9% efficiency were both solid, though a number of his failed attempts came from trying to execute dump-ins and zone exits rather than forcing plays through traffic.

That’s ultimately where I think his offensive projection settles.

I don’t see a defender who’s going to beat forecheckers with his hands, dance across the blue line, or manufacture offense out of nothing. His game is much more structured than that. He activates at the right times, distributes the puck well, and makes smart decisions with space in front of him.

When I watch Dupont, I see a player with a high-end, NHL-caliber skating foundation and a defensive game that I already trust despite his size. The offensive upside may not be as dynamic as some of the flashier defensemen in the NHL, like Quinn Hughes or Cale Makar. Still, there’s real offensive value in a player whose game is built on skating, reliability, and intelligent puck movement.

It’s still early in the process, but I think you’re looking at a prospect whose floor is a legitimate top-four NHL defenseman with second power-play upside.

The question over the next year isn’t whether Landon Dupont can defend.

It’s whether there’s another level to his offensive ceiling waiting to emerge.

Photo Credit: Derek Cain/Getty Images