It does concern me that he looked absolutely dominant the first 4 or 5 games and now looks fine most of the time but not nearly as good as that. Is it because he was super prepared and other players have “warmed up” and gotten better? Is it just fatigue from playing at this high level? Not sure.
I posted about this because I knew it was coming.
It is 100% fatigue, and it will — should — take years for him to get to a level where he can play consistently at a high level for an entire NHL season.
The marginals are small, they are pushed hard and hammered physically by forecheckers but not the least by shot blocking, and so forth and so forth. Heck, often only the Ds that play for the better teams can hold it together.
It takes so little to really get into it deep for a D in this league. If you are just a little little bit on your heels for a split second when the play turns there won’t be any room to recover. When the puck is moved, if the D in a split second can make a good pass his unit will keep possession and take the play to the other team, all the while forecheckers are trying to knock you out cold, if the pass isn’t made it’s often a dangerous break against and 30 sec on defense.
When you get to a stage where you can do that, the biggest step remains, and that is to be able to do the above when your wrists, ankles, ribs, shoulders and/or whatever body is really sore, the legs are heavy, you been caught on the ice for a few long shifts etc etc etc.
