This will probably go on forever no matter what I say but ill keep biting.
There is no reason in the history of the nhl to logically be where Bouchard was on that goal against. There is nothing "understandable" about the mistake Bouchard made. It was a complete and utter mental collapse. Its like the controller died and the avatar just randomly goes in the opposite direction you want it to go. The mistake JK made is made every game by every player just trying to do thier best.
Bouchard has made these kind of mistakes typically once per gameish. Which is absolutely acceptable for a first year defenseman. Actually only once per game relatively speaking is dang good. Doesn't change that when he does make a mistake its a grade A one that can easily end up in the back of our net.
He isn't a top 4 ready defender yet. He averages 14 min a night and sheltered minutes to boot. He is doing great for his first year and is getting better every game. Thats awesome. No reason to gloss over his few mistakes.
There is one point that you seem to be missing and its critical.
Let me put it this way.
If you are driving down the road and you make a quick decision (instead of making the proper decision) to take your concentration off of the road for a few seconds (mistake #1)..that inattention causes your car to veer into the other lane. That in turn causes the inexperienced driver in the other lane to over react (mistake #2) and pull his car hard into the 3rd lane which in turn causes an accident.
Mistake #2 was a very quick decision made under duress. An inexperienced driver had more difficulty with this decision than an experienced driver would but the point is that decisions made under duress are not the same as decisions made voluntarily because of bad judgment.
The likelihood of a serious problem is greatly increased because decisions made under duress are far more difficult to process.
JJ lost focus and made a decision to throw the puck softly into the middle of the ice...it was the wrong decision but it was a primary mistake because (like the driver in the example) he had the time to make the proper decision. Every decision after that (secondary mistakes) were made under duress and as such were much much more difficult to manage.
I am far less worried about the secondary mistakes (especially from rookies) compared to the primary mistakes.
For good reason.
If you eliminate the primary mistakes the frequency of secondary mistakes goes way down and the other team has less chances to score.
The other point here is that rookies tend to make more primary mistakes than experienced players do. Thats just the nature of learning how to play at the NHL pace. So when an experienced player makes a primary mistake I view that as more significant than if a rookie did it.
As far as Bouchard is concerned...he doesn't make many primary mistakes especially when you consider his lack of experience. He still does make them but thats why you play him on the 3rd pairing and play him with a Vet dman...so you can mitigate the potential damage when a mistake inevitably happens.
The thing is Bouchard adds more to the team in positives than he creates with his mistakes (negatives) which is why I think he is in the right situation (for now) playing in the NHL. If that changes I will be the first to suggest that he goes down.
As long as he is a net positive (and played in the proper role) I think he is fine being on the team.
Based on what I have seen so far its clear that Bouchard is an obvious net positive player.
