Not disputing that he had a great year with us two seasons ago. He did. There was really no drop off at all from Dougie leaving. You could argue he might have been an upgrade. But career years are a thing as well and it seems like with TDA unless everything is just right he isn't a reliable/consistent enough player to put out there and not worry about.
True, but he's only had 4 seasons over 60 games played (due to other concerns) so it's not a large sample size. And really had 2, maybe 3 seasons out of those where he's put up good stats.
1) Rangers: Who weren't that bad of a bad team (only 2 points less than Carolina), they were a middle of the pack team and he had 53 points and was +12
2) Canes: Who were a very good team and he put up 51 points and was a plus 30.
In Philly, he was on a bad team. He had 42 points, but he was a -27 and was scratched because of his play. Philly paid him to be a top 4 defenseman, which we all knew was a mistake.
I agree with you that I wouldn't feel generally comfortable putting him out there and not worrying, but I also feel confident saying that even on a good team, you put Tony on a 3rd pairing with a defensively responsible partner and give him 1st PP time, he'll net you 40-50 points and be good enough defensively as well that you don't worry too much.
I don't put the Orlov-TDA disaster pairing solely on him. Orlov was doing some absolutely bizarre stuff early in the season but he has a track record of being a responsible two way force who can lay someone out. He's adjusted an playing much better now.
I agree, it wasn't all on Tony, but the match wasn't good. Tony needs a strong defensive partner and Orlov early on wasn't that.
If we can trade him, free up some cap and get a pick then great. If not, he's an extra D that we can use as players need rest or to mitigate injury.
Yeah, I'd rather keep him for depth unless we use the space to improve the team elsewhere. He has worts, but he knows our team, knows our coach, knows our system. As we've seen with Orlov and others, picking up another defenseman who has to learn our man to man system might not work out either. We are going to need depth in the playoffs, no doubt about that.