Current Avs Blueline - Worst top 6 post lockout?

[detrude]

the current D is worse. Hannan, Liles, and possibly Clark would all be on Colorado's current top-pairing, while Leopold and Skrastins were acceptable second pairing guys. I'd even argue that Sauer and Klee would be improvements on the OBs and Zanon.

Debatable at best. We're far enough removed from that team that their shortcomings don't seem as bad, but Clark and Hannan got a lot of **** for their games. Meanwhile we're in the middle of a suck, so it's easier to look under the microscope. That said, neither unit is all that good.

Hannan was a good shutdown guy before coming to the team, but he struggled terribly for us when playing against the top lines. Wasn't this the year he had the worst +/- in the league? I'd take EJ over him 11 times out of 10. Liles was a third year player who was never that good defensively, averaging 19ish minutes in 07-08 and 17ish minutes the year before. Outside of his point production, it's debatable if he's better than Barrie and Wilson. People who look back fondly at Liles will likely say yes, others probably not, he's polarizing like that. Clark *was* on that team's top pair, and people hated every minute of it. I won't comment on him since I despised him so much. Klee was indeed solid and fairly underrated, I'd definitely take him over RoB and Zanon.

Overall the composition of the teams were very similar: one top pair guy, a mid pair guy, a young guy who's unproven but has good upside, and a bunch of bottom pair guys. None of these units are very good, and looking back it's amazing that either of those teams were even able to sniff playoffs.

 

[Pokecheque]

Debatable at best. We're far enough removed from that team that their shortcomings don't seem as bad, but Clark and Hannan got a lot of **** for their games. Meanwhile we're in the middle of a suck, so it's easier to look under the microscope. That said, neither unit is all that good.

Hannan was a good shutdown guy before coming to the team, but he struggled terribly for us when playing against the top lines. Wasn't this the year he had the worst +/- in the league? I'd take EJ over him 11 times out of 10. Liles was a third year player who was never that good defensively, averaging 19ish minutes in 07-08 and 17ish minutes the year before. Outside of his point production, it's debatable if he's better than Barrie and Wilson. People who look back fondly at Liles will likely say yes, others probably not, he's polarizing like that. Clark *was* on that team's top pair, and people hated every minute of it. I won't comment on him since I despised him so much. Klee was indeed solid and fairly underrated, I'd definitely take him over RoB and Zanon.

Overall the composition of the teams were very similar: one top pair guy, a mid pair guy, a young guy who's unproven but has good upside, and a bunch of bottom pair guys. None of these units are very good, and looking back it's amazing that either of those teams were even able to sniff playoffs.

Actually, Hannan had the league's worst plus/minus rating for the Sharks the year before he signed with the Avs, which made the big $$$ signing all the more puzzling.

It'd be nice if we could just get a top-3, with one top pairing that could eat monster minutes (hopefully something like Barrie/EJ), then our glut of depth defenders could actually be used more like depth defenders.

 

[expatriatedtexan]

There were better ones from that year

Toward the end Hannan and Liles were the only ones who stayed, a combination of Peltier, Vernace, Macias, MacKenzie and O'Neill making up the rest.

Such a sad season...we had a freaking ridiculous number of dmen suit up that year.

[edit...just had to check AvalancheDB and found out it was 14 dmen...Clark, Cumiskey, Foote, Hannan, Leopold, Liles, Macias, MacKenzie, Nycholat, O'Neill, Peltier, Salei, Tjarnqvist and Verance.]

 

[Lonewolfe2015]

Shaggy! I miss Tjarnqvist, as far as 7th defenders went, he wasn't half bad.

 

[Pokecheque]

Shaggy! I miss Tjarnqvist, as far as 7th defenders went, he wasn't half bad.

Um, no, he was more than half bad. I can still remember going to Pepsi Center for an Avs game against the Ducks, one of the few contests he had suited up for. He was put out for two quick shifts and both shifts ended with the puck in the Avs net. Nice Guy Granato benched him for the rest of the game. I don't remember him playing much at all after that. Dude couldn't win a battle for the puck to save his life. I think Cumiskey was harder to knock around.

 

[dahrougem2]

06-07. I don't remember the exact pairs, but the D consisted of:

Liles, Brisebois, Klee, Skrastins, Clark, Vaananen, Finger, Leopold. With Budaj and Theodore as goalies. The team with this defense managed 95 points.


07-08. Again, I don't remember exact pairs:

Hannan, Clark, Leopold, Liles, Skrastins, Sauer, Finger, Cumiskey, Salei, and Foote at the deadline. This defense went to the second round of the playoffs.

I would take these defenses over the defense of today ANY DAY of the week. This is in Liles' prime, Hannan was playing solid, not amazing but solid hockey. Brett Clark was a very servicable defenseman, as was Karlis Skrastins. Kurt Sauer played better than he was, and Cumiskey was actually an NHL defenseman before he forgot how to play hockey. Foote is Foote, and Salei was over the hill at this point. I would take every one of these defenseman except for Salei over Zanon, Hunwick, and O'Byrne, and would be indifferent if they replaced Hejda and O'Brien

 

[Sea Eagles]

All things considered, is says a lot that BOTH our goalies have sub three GAA's. Imagine Varly and Jiggy behind a half decent defense.

 

[Holyhell]

Dunno about worst, but it's been constant source of disappointment since for nearly a decade.

 

[a mangy Meowth]

Dunno about worst, but it's been constant source of disappointment since for nearly a decade.

Sir I thought the last O'Money avatar I saw couldn't be topped, but yours topped it about ten times over. Oh lord