Gonchar has been great for our possession game. But, does anyone feel he is soooo slow to get a shot off? When he receives a puck, by the time he gets a shot prepared, a defender is on him. Karlsson never has this problem.
Well, Gonchar is not in his prime anymore so his release is not as good anymore, still NHL level but not Elite as it was. Reminds me a bit of Kovalev the last year he played in the NHL. He couldn't get his shots off as fast as before and he became relatively easier to defend against... It has a lot to do with age...
I may be in the minority but I have liked Gonchar for his entire time here. Yes, he is overpaid. But if you want to attract free agents to a small market that is going to be the reality. As long as you don't hand out contracts that are downright awful, I don't mind overpaying a little bit to fill a need that cannot be addressed from within. Because he isn't physical I feel he becomes underrated defensively, too, as many mistakenly equate physical play with good defense.
Great post. I have been trying to say this for a while... I also think that Gonchar is good defensively, outside of a few blunders or lazy plays there and there... (no D-man is perfect)
Gonchar is a bit overpaid (should be 4.5 at this stage of his career) but it's better to have him than not... At some point, you need to reach the cap floor and have some experienced quality players (for marketing reasons too). I like guys like Andre Benoit and Brendan Bell but I'd take Gonchar over them even if it costs more...
No actually, Gonchar was brought here to help improve the rookies play and so far he has done exactly that and also played as an excellent stop gap while our team has developed players such as Wiercioch. People had Wiercioch on the bus for the rest of his life last season, funny the turn around now.
Gonchar deserves ton of credit for the development of Erik Karlsson and other young D-men... Erik said it himself (and lol that's why you see a lot of turnover in people's opinion)
^kuba put up 40 pts in 70 games his first year. 30 pts in 50 games his second year. just had one bad yr the yr before last. coincidentally so did everyone else on the team.
just to get that part straight.
Like someone else said, he was forced to play a position he isn't supposed to play most of his time here in Ottawa because the entire defense crumbled down in 2007-08 so Murray and his staff decided to rebuild it (and made their next 1st round draft picks D-men : Karlsson and Cowen)
Kuba still have produced very well in his time here :
2008-09 Ottawa Senators NHL 71 3 37 40
2009-10 Ottawa Senators NHL 53 3 25 28
2010-11 Ottawa Senators NHL 64 2 14 16
2011-12 Ottawa Senators NHL 73 6 26 32
The 2010-11 season was terrible but the team was entirely disorganized until the rebuild. But overall, Kuba's contribution has been perfectly adequate considering the contexts, etc. He has been a good stop gap solution
