I don't think he has. Players who play as physical as Stuart does, without taking penalties, are rare. Ericsson, for example, 12 minor penalties in 41 games last year. Stuart had 12 in 82. Those 12 minor penalties are probably 2-3 extra goals over the course of the year.
Detroit's PK this year and last year is about 81%. That means that 12 minors would be 2.28 goals. Since Ericsson is key to the unit, say we reduce the effectiveness of the unit from 81% a very harsh amount to 75% (worse than any team in the league in 11-12; Columbus last with 76.6%. Better than only Florida's 73.1% this season.) That increases it to 3 goals.
This is assuming no coincidental minors. A lot of the penalties Ericsson takes are coincidental penalties; in other words, no PK situation. Let's say 4 of the 14 are coincidentals, and the PK rate was reduced more reasonably - to something like 78%. That is 1.76 goals. Could be lower if Ericsson has a higher rate of coincidental minors; which isn't unlikely - I tried to aim low. He passes the 1.5 mark with that 78% PK if it gets to 6 coincidentals out of 12 penalties.
I was/am a big Stuart fan. I would also be the first to admit he had a bad playoff series last year. And he made a terrible turnover yesterday.
I remember a bad pass Gretzsky made one time too. And even Lidstrom got beat a few times.
Stuart has been bad for much longer than just that playoff series.
He came to the Wings. He was a good top-four physical defensive defenseman. He played well. He did well the next season also. 09-10 is when he started to play poorly. Not as bad then as last year, but there was a significant drop. I'm sure Heaton remembers how badly I wanted to trade Stuart even back then.
San Jose traded for the rights to a third-pairing level defenseman and paid him top-four money. He was happy to start the year and looked good, but his lack of ability won the day.
