Heading into this season, the Calgary Flames were considered a hockey club with some strong defensive depth. A couple weeks ago, in the run-up to the National Hockey League trade deadline, they lost Mark Giordano and Travis Hamonic, two of the team’s biggest minute-eaters, to injury.

So how have the Flames done without them?

Giordano was injured on Feb. 4 against San Jose. Hamonic was injured on Feb. 8 against Vancouver. The Flames have played six games without both of them, going 3-3-0 in those games. (The aggregate score in those six games was 28-23.)

So how have the individual defenders performed?

Here’s how they look possession-wise:

And in terms of translating possession into, y’know, good scoring chances:

While we’re looking at this, a note: obviously, the sample size is a bit skewed. The Flames have played six games without Giordano and Hamonic and the “before” period contains roughly 53 games with them both available. In particular, Davidson’s two segments are wonky – three games versus four games prior – so it’s probably best to ignore his earlier segment.

So what’s changed?

The top pairing is Andersson and Hanifin. They’ve been getting a moderate amount of offensive zone starts against top opposition, a change for Andersson – who had previously spent a good chunk of the season with Kylington feasting on third and fourth lines with heavy offensive zone starts.

The second pair is Stone and Brodie. Brodie had previously gotten moderate O-zone starts with Giordano, primarily pitted against the other team’s top six. Stone, when he played, usually got sheltered against third and fourth lines in a defensive zone “glass and out” role. This pair is getting a heavy dosage of O-zone starts, likely with a mind towards utilizing Stone’s booming shot (and trying to hide their defensive challenges).

That leaves a combination of Kylington and Yelesin and Davidson on the third pair – Yelesin and Davidson both played three of the six games. Kylington is getting more D-zone starts and used more in a “transition the puck” role, which is probably an effort to keep things simple for Yelesin and Davidson. Regardless of which guy Kylington has played with, he’s tended to operate as a fifth defender and rotate in with either Andersson or Stone from time to time. (In their limited usage, Yelesin has definitively out-played Davidson.)

Now, the general trend from these deployment tweaks has been the Flames have been getting more scoring chances and are playing with the puck more. That said, the grain of salt is that the Flames have been playing against some bad teams – and Vancouver and Boston.

The eye test says that Stone has struggled at times. He’s definitely not performing to the level of Brodie, Andersson and Hanifin, but the numbers say that he’s improved from how he performed earlier this season. Also, Andersson and Hanifin have done a tremendous job taking on the heavy lifting in Giordano’s absence. It’s unclear how long they can keep it up, but it’s very impressive to see a pair of players in their very early 20s step up to this extent.

Should the Flames try to add a defender? Well, it would definitely help balance out the minutes and make the wear and tear on the group less severe. But the Flames blueliners have performed fairly well despite missing a pair of their top players.