thing is, he was used as our #1B d this series (top pairing minutes, more ice time than weber in 2 of the 3 elimination games)... and he clearly wasn't up to the task (no fault of his own), but luckily the combo of Price's genius and Matthews/Marner going ice cold as shooters, allowed us to eek out a successful outcome despite not because of the level of play he was able to muster.
i fully agree, as a 4th d, he's a very solid player, and i fully agree that he did his best against Matthews...
i just don't attribute Matthews snakebitten shooting to the impact of Chiarot's play. As you said, for any dman going up against a player of that caliber, there's only so much you can expect. I didn't expect any more from Chiarot, I'm just not inclined to exaggerate his performance.
If it was his impact... the "little things" he did, as you suggest, that shut down Matthews productivity, than it would only be fair to suggest that he's among the, if not THE best shut down dman in the league.
That is not the case... or at least, that's not my assessment of his performance level.
Feels like maybe you interpreted something wrong from my initial post here.
Matthews being shutdown is not Chiarot himself, far from it. It’s group effort that starts with Price, the top 4 and forwards.
What i’m saying here is Chiarot had the most minutes against Matthews by far. To not give him credit about Matthews being off the scoreboard is wrong in my eyes. Like Weber, Petry, Edmundson and Price should get credit for it. No one is saying Chiarot by himself took Matthews out, that would never happen. Yet he deserve full credit like the rest of those guys and more than others because of the sheer amount of time he spent on the ice against him.
You really think that Chiarot constant harassment of Matthews, always hitting him, crosschecking him, going to him after the whistle had nothing to do with Matthews or Marner doing more ? You think that Chiarot being in those guys face every second on the ice (even with giveaways and turnovers here and there) taking out space and time didn’t mess with those guys ability to create chances and score goals ?
I respect that from him, even when Matthews didn’t want anything to do with it, Chiarot was always dancing the legal line with him every single shift. At one point it was even embarrassing how much Chiarot wouldn’t stop. He put it has a mission in his head.
For me he, and others will get credit for that. As much as I dont like that coaching staff, they played him that much for a reason and im 100% sure that if you were behind that bench and saw how it is in their world you would have had Chiarot there playing the most minutes.
Yes Price, Price and Price I will always agree and I will never blame Price and what ever success this team get will always be Price. But you can’t just not give credit to the guy.
And I agree as a 4th he’s really good in that chair. Sadly it’s the NHL, go look around the league and you will see players playing places that is not exactly the fit for them but that’s a reality for every team.