Zaitsev not looking NHL level? That’s terribly untrue. From a good few games to close out the Bruins series and a healthy summer, Nikita Zaitsev is back playing how he did in his first year and probably even better. He’s a legitimate top 4 d man... your opinion of him is inaccurate.Faulk is significantly better defensively and manages to be a strong rel possession player despite playing on an elite possession team. Meanwhile the Gardiner-Zaitsev pair has been a nightmare on ice this season. Some of that has to be attributed to Zaitsev not looking NHL level, but Faulk is much better at carrying a pair than Gardiner is. To me Faulk is a solid #2 and Gardiner is a pretty good #3.
Always a place for guys with a good pulse on the game that do all the little things to have positive effect on the play... things that’ll get missed by the casual fan who evaluates with charts and graphs.