I'm in the camp that he wasn't playing as bad as people made it out to be. If you look at his game, it's much the same. The guy has good offensive instincts and the wheels to jump up into the play. He plays physical, especially on the wall. He makes a good first pass out of the zone. He has a good stick defensively.
His problems in the past were few but glaring. He went on a run there when every mistake he made seemed to end up in the back of the net. He also pressed when the team wasn't playing well and compounded the teams problems. He's doing a better job not trying to force things. He's making the safe play to clear the puck out of the zone when a direct pass isn't there. He's better at picking out his spots to pinch. Really, we are talking about one or two plays a game that he was forcing that he no longer is.
Physically, he's much more imposing then the last couple years. He was in a habit of pushing rather than hitting with his legs. It's hard to say why, but his injuries may have had something to do with it. Guys a beast right now though. When a guy goes into a corner with Bieksa, regardless how big they are, they pay a price.
I stuck up for him in the past because I felt like his game wasn't far from being very good. I was willing to give him the benefit of the doubt because of the injuries and because I felt like his upside was too high to give up on him. It doesn't matter whether he was getting a fair shake before, if you were one of the many that said he would be addition by subtraction or that he had the worst hockey IQ in history or that he was Pejorative Slured defensively, you were dead wrong. Admit it and move on.
