A. He doesn't suck.
B. Aren't you tired at crapping on Habs players on the Main Boards for Likes? Fricking HFINO(Hab Fan In Name Only)
A.
Let me put it that way : He has the tools to be decent. And the way he plays may have been dictated by the coaching staff - in fact, this is something that was common too over the past 2-3 years for guys like Romanov, Weber and Edmundson too.
But regardless, he is too aggressive. And that would be the TL;DR for the rest of my post : Over aggressiveness that leads to opponents' scoring chances.
I have nothing against physical play if done properly - i.e. with tangible on-ice impacts. But Chiarot goes for unneeded hits, and in the process, gets out of position really, really often. Going for hits in the neutral zone when the opponent is transitioning at 2 or 3 on 2 is rarely smart. He also takes penalties way, way too often - so even if he can be decent on the PK, he can't be if he's in the box. And he takes as many penalties in the playoffs as during the regular season. Refs don't call less penalties in the playoffs, they just let more go.
He also ends up spending extensive amounts of time in the defensive zone because he's either late to the play or deported himself into the corner to go for a hit, leaving passing lanes - or even opponents - completely open. He has not been an efficient cycle-breaker.
When he plays the transition defense properly, and forces dumps (uncontrolled entries) when he knows one of his teammates (or even himself) has the possibility of recovering, he's decent. He also has a decent shot, and yeah, he's not an exceptional skater but he's not bad either - just his edge work that is meh. Can still be decent in transition, but not more than average. My assessment of his time with the Habs is not as a physical defensive d-man (though "stay at home" d-man isn't a wrong assessment considering the extended amount of time he spent in the d-zone unable to regain control), but rather as a physical d-man, who isn't better offensively than he is defensively and vice-versa.
At the end, if he's not going to fix his aggressiveness issues, he's only going to be as good as his goalie. Price saving his butt several time in last year's playoffs (except against Winnipeg where the Habs were simply cruising, including Chiarot) saved him from costly mistakes.
Do I think he can flourish with Florida's coaching staff? Maybe. I don't know them. What I said above isn't a skillset issue, and it is something that can easily be fixed with proper deployment and coaching. It's playing like it's still the 90s. The Panthers do have a d-man who, before joining them, played like a headless chicken too in Gudas, who has looked pretty decent in my limited viewing of the Panthers. If he's not going to fix anything, I hope they can put him with someone that can cover for his mistakes. With the Habs, Petry-Chiarot (before this petryd season) were much better to me than Weber-Chiarot, as Weber played more of the same.
B.
1) When discussing players and all, I don't post for Likes. I post my opinions, and I'll always be happy to expand on them and discuss with people in good faith, even if they can be controversial. And I'll happily hear counterpoints. I don't want to pretend like I hold the absolute truth either - just like I don't want to pretend like coaches, GMs, etc. hold the absolute truth either. Everyone may have their bias, and constructive arguing can lead to both party realizing stuff they did not think about.
2) When talking about Habs players, I like to take the most unbiased approach possible - even if that's hard. For every "pessimistic" post about Chiarot, Weber, Anderson, Hoffman, Edmundson, Romanov, etc., there were positive posts about Lehkonen aka legit middle-6er and not bottom-6er, Danault-Gally-Tatar aka top 5 line in the league for 3 years, Kulak, Mete, etc. Being a Habs fan doesn't prevent one of having negative opinions about their players.
