Woulda, shoulda, coulda, the article is about speculation & what if. Nobody knows why PD took the route he did & whether those guys were available to him or not or whether they would have come here or not. Why would anyone want Ryan Murray, he is injury prone & I believe has only had one season where he played every game & has missed tons of games in his career? Toews would have been a good pickup, but who knows if he would have fit here or done well given all the other problems this defence has had.
Goaltending has been as big a problem as the defence if not bigger at times & Toews would not have been able to change that. Does any know what has happened to Hogberg after such a good end to his season last yr? Why does he suck so much this yr & can't stop a beach ball? Murray has had his ups & downs this yr too, playing some good games & some stinkers. It doesn't matter how good the defence is if the goalie is letting in terrible goals at bad times.
Reilly has had some good games but more bad ones. Wolanin has yet to return to the player before his injury, Brannstrom is suffering with rookie mistakes, Coburn is over the hill, J. Brown isn't good enough & Gudbranson is playing more minutes than he should because so many other defencemen on this team suck. Zaitsev has had a good start to the yr, but last game looked like he was falling back to earth & Chabot has stunk defensively most of the yr constantly giving the puck away. The only real good surprise on defence has been Zub who came in part way after the start of the season & has looked comfortable from Day 1 playing a very solid game in all three zones for a defensive defenceman. The forwards have been better, but they give the puck away quite a lot too & make their own mistakes at critical times that usually end up in the back of our net.
