kanuck87
Registered User
- Oct 12, 2008
- 7,168
- 1,460
I think when the arguments in favour of Barker are "he won't play!" and "he'll only be as terrible as these other terrible options!" that it's a pretty lousy signing. Heck, why is the team seemingly banking on Tanev being a stalwart defenseman? The team has zero fallback options right now. Not a good summer for Gillis before the lockout and a bad start after it.
I think the argument is that you can't expect your #8 defenseman to be of NHL-calibre quality. No competent d-men will ever sign up to play in that role. So the next best alternative is to find fringe players who are willing to play that role.
We've been lucky the past two seasons that we've had 7 or 8 competent d-man, but let's not forget that Rome was once a 26 year old career AHL d-man struggling to be a consistent NHLer and he turned out to be a rock for us. He didnt come here having already been a solid NHLer. It's not neccessarily what I think will happen with Barker, but sometimes younger players tend to test their limits to see how much of their full potential they can reach, and when they realize that they need to change things or else they'll be out of the NHL soon, they will start to keep things simple. I think thats what the Canucks are hoping here with Barker. Whether it works remains to be seen, but it's a relatively insignificant signing, and this thread shouldnt be going on 18 pages right now.
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