I still find all this Myers talk at a complete double standard.
Edler is being over used.
Schmidt is still figuring things out, as a recent transplant.
Hughes can't be expected to play his game and be good at defense.
Benn was never supposed to play so much.
Juolevi is still getting used to the NHL.
Chatfield is way over his head through no fault of his own.
But Myers....right off the bat these boards hated him. No Schmidt like period of adjustment, no Hughes like excusing of surrendering scoring chances due to play style (his Calder winning seasons was 5 points off Hughes on a much worse team, for reference), only an admission that he is being overused, like Edler and Benn (likely to shelter Hughes, I should add).Because of his size, everyone expected a bruiser, or at least a shut down guy. The guys always been an offensive minded D, and that's who was signed and brought in. We didn't know what Hughes was (realistically) projected to be yet, we've had years of subpar offense from our D (see the list below). We complain about not having someone to handle big forwards in front of our net (anyone remember Bieksa vs. Byfuglien against Chicago?), and then don't like the size mismatch penalties (even I, trying to defend him, admit some of them have been stupid on Myers' part). We want our superstar sophomore defenseman, aging elder statesman on D, rookies and new acquisition to all have sheltered minutes, but think we're overplaying the only guys that falls outside of those descriptions. We don't want Benning trading for a player (as we often seemed to over pay before very recently), but we get pissed when he overpays in free agency (I mean this one is fair given our track record, but there seems to be no winning).
I don't like the cap hit, or term, but it would have gone to someone else offseason before last....and we likely still would have walked Markstrom, Tanev and whoever the equivalent of Toffoli would have been. Would another Eriksson have been better? A Skinner? A Matheson? And I know it sounds overly dramatic (I think I'd have preferred the cap space just not be used too)...but this is Benning here, logic and best case scenarios don't enter the discussion. He will commit the worst act.
Before he, and Hughes, and Schmidt, were all on this team, all of us were complaining we had no defensemen that could actually play with the puck, outside of Edler. Everyone was, at best, a two-way D, like Stecher, Tanev, Sbisa, Del Zotto, Biega, Hutton, Fantenberg, Hamhuis, Bieksa, Salo, Gudbranson, Schenn, Pouliot, Weber, Bartkowski, Garrison, Alberts, Rome, Ohlund, Allen, Malik(basically I think everyone without Jovanovski and Ehrhoff since 2000)....I mean especially with Tanev gone, I feel like the needle went too far the other way, (too many puck movers/offensive minded D, not enough shut down guys) but does no one remember why we hated Sbisa and Gudbranson? Dumb as a bag of hammers, with or without the puck. Relative to our cap situation and player situation, now versus then, I'd still prefer Myers to the Gudbransons, Bartkowskis, Sbisas and Del Zottos of the world.
Myers takes a lot of heat on here, heat that I think would be dumped on the next guy down the list for gaffes and errors due to no longer being protected: Hughes. When he gets his big contract, I feel like this board is going to want to tar him, feather him, and run him out of town on the rails. I don't want that, but we always seem to have a scapegoat.
I also feel that all the excuses that I've used for other defensemen, and Myers looking as bad as he has, all have one thing in common: Coaching. Good coaching would be making a system around the existing pieces, not trying to hammer them into an existing, predetermined mold. Ditto Virtanen, ditto Gaudette, ditto...well anyone dropping off from last year or not finding success with a role they're not cut out for.
Anyway, rant over. I'd fire Green and Benning, bring in a player like Mayfield for Hughes, and try to find a shutdown LHD like him (on a similar contract) for Myers, and pair up Schmidt and Edler, and play the hot hand, and periodically get Juolevi, Chatfield and Rathbone (seriously, how has he not played a game yet?) in for who ever is looking slow, sore or cold.
