Puck moving D-men give away the puck more than stay at home D-men. More at 11.
It does matter how many times a game a puck moving defenceman is turning over the puck, and it's relative.
What players are out on the ice that he's passing too, a puck moving defenseman can rack up points like Barrie when he led all defenseman in scoring because of quality of players he's passing to. And what players are on the ice that can read the play and pick off those passes.
Many categories of wins and loses that in the end add up to wins and loses in "playoffs games and playoff series" when everyone is playing for keeps and one mistake can be very costly.
Take into consideration how many lost battles and missed assignments a defenceman has in their own zone. Does that defenseman recognise his assignment? It doesn't matter if we have other prominent defensemen that also cannot and I'd argue much comes down to the defensive system being coached! Does the defenseman show urgency when that's all that will prevent a goal against? How does that defenseman stand up at the blue line to prevent zone entries, prevent odd man rushes, and not give clear real estate to the slot to giving up high probability scoring chances? Can they prevent the opposition from finding the seams? And most importantly, the most unrecognized aspect of defensive hockey for a defenseman, are the plays they make repeatable? Because if that puck moving defenseman does one thing on one given shift and another thing the next shift, "the team will be garbage". "Any goaltender playing in front of unpredictable defensive structure will look like garbage."
Evey great goaltender, no matter how talented the team in front of him is, has players that play a level of defence that is 99.9% predictable to that goaltender; to the extent he doesn't even have to think about the unfolding play, because he's just making save after save. The definition of routine.
Nobody is attacking Bouchard. He's a good player with beautiful passing ability and great on the pp, when he keeps his feet moving; posters are rightfully pointing out Bouchard has "many holes in his game" and while he will continue to improve and iron out some of the wrinkles, he's never going to be an elite defenseman. He's going to be in the mold of other offensive defensemen who have notable deficiencies to their games. And you can't overpay a defenseman like that.
Bouchard's contract has to be reasonable, team friendly in amount and term. If not it should be recognized that Bouchard's value is at an all time high when the Edmonton Oilers find themselves in a bit of a cap crunch.
As I said before it shouldn't be out of the question that many of the team's shortcomings could be corrected with trading Bouchard and juggling the assets received in that trade with other assets, parts and pieces to make the Oilers an unstoppable force.
how much do you like a right side of Ceci and Desharnais??
