Then why not just play him with Staal? They were good together last season, and it gives you a veteran pairing that has the good balance of a puck mover and a stay-at-home defender.
Putting ADA with Skjei prevents Skjei from being a rover, where we've seen him struggle. They too had really good numbers together in a limited sample size. That leaves Pionk with one of the remaining LD, whether it be Smith, Hajek, or Claesson.
I don't disagree about our overstock of LD. Hartford is currently slated to roll 6 LD, which is nonsensical if you ask me. I like Bigras and Crawley, but I still wouldn't be surprised if we see a trade soon.
Despite what the haters say, Staal wasn't all that bad last season so I think you HAVE to play Shattenkirk with Staal but ideally on the 2nd pair.
You just know that he's going to start out on the top pair anyway, then 20 games in Quinn will make adjustments blah blah.
I couldn't possibly see any situation where ADA would warrant top pairing minutes next to Skjei what so ever.
Skjei: He's actually proven that he can be quite effective on the offensive side of things but if you look at who his partner was (Smith), I can't really blame Skjei for being ineffective.
At the end of the day..
It's nearly impossible to look at this defense as a whole and make any sense out of it.
If you look at the pieces, none of them match, not one single player compliments a specific partner.
It's all just a big giant cluster f***..
I feel bad for Quinn! Lol