It's between him and Bouch. Two very different players stylistically... both are very good at what they do. Ek will never have as many points as Bouch and Bouch will never have as solid a defensive game as Ek. Perfect compliments.
Okay. I was wrong, what’s your point? Everyone has their hits and misses, that’s a big miss. I believed with the trajectory he was taking at the time it was the right move for Nashville. Didn’t pan out that way.
That is the case this year because Ekholm plays against tougher competition more than Nurse does 33% of his time vs 30% for Nurse. Ekholm sees slightly less time than Nurse simply because Bouchard plays so much PP.
Campbell was in the NHL over Pickard for an entire year when it was even clear then he was cooked.
At the end of the day, together Ekholm and Nurse are worth their combined cap hits, although Ekholm deserves more of that then Nurse does.
This would be true if the Nurse pairing saw tougher minutes...which it doesn't
It still was the right move for Nashville. Carrying all 3 of Josi, McDonagh, and Ekholm forward was a road to nowheresville. Schaefer struggled this season in the AHL, but Molendyk would have made the NHL roster out of camp, as a 19 year old (pretty unheard of for the Preds D), if Bruno hadn't been talked out of it. He is very likely to be a Pred next season.
That’s fair, but I genuinely believed given what I had heard from Nashville fans, along with his age, it was the right move on those merits and a case of Edmonton buying at a bad time.
The lines you see are the ones on the official gamesheet, and the order doesn't really matter beyond which line is starting the game.
And he was better in 2017. It's the reason I always held at the time that if I had to keep one Dman it would have been Ekholm and not Josi. He's not going to put up Josi level points, but Josi can't play with just anyone and make them better while also shutting the other teams top guys down.
