He's playing 13 mins a game against the bottom 2 lines as much as possible.
No coach is going to waste one of their better d-men protecting a guy who isn't playing like he belongs in the NHL. That defenseman is better used playing against the top-2 lines, for more minutes, with a better regular partner and will have to be used with those players on special teams.
Or maybe the problem is we probably only have 2 D-men that could play a significant role on a good team. All of Chabot, Reilly, Wolanin, Brannstrom would have needed a guy like Zub on RD, or an even better one in Chabot's case.
Zub has basically been the only guy steadily solid defensively, and the "lucky" guy playing with him has been Mike Reilly, who was the 8th D-men on the 27th ranked team last season... I saw him play a lot in Montreal and he had really good games before. A lot of people in MTL believed he could turn into a top-4 D-man but he was so widly inconsistent that the team decided to move on from him. I mean, it's a matter of opinion but I thought he was the worst NHL D-man I have ever seen in that first ~10-12 games this year. But he was allowed to work through it and has "settled in" since. Outside of that stretch, he has had a decent season but like with Chris Tierney, not the type of player I would keep long term and try to build a winner with. Nothing against them, And again, absolutely no problem if someone thinks differently
Like we have seen with Balcers, the team waived him to be able to keep guys like Paquette (didn't want to be here), Anisimov (last NHL season) or Galchenyuk (reclamation project). Sharks fans seem to be happy with Balcers and want him to play with Hertl
Some would say "number's game" but seriously, a manager is paid to have the foresight to see that kind of stuff coming. So basically, it's not because they make any decision that I will necessarily endorse it. This management has lost the benefit of the doubt (or leash) from me. This has been confirmed this season by a lot of decisions. Again this is all my opinion, I am not forcing anyone to share it.
Wolanin played 13 mins a game. He had the lowest starts period. For the record, Brannstrom was the only D with more offensive zone starts vs defensive zone starts.
Yes, Josh Brown, Erik Brannstrom and even Braydon Coburn (but had the benefit of the doubt because of experience) have also been sheltered. I think they now realize that Erik Gudbranson would also need to be. Chabot, Zaitsev, Zub and Reilly don't need to be "sheltered" but there's also a limit on what you can ask from them, which has obviously been too much this season.
There are lots of problems. Wolanin hasn't been the solution to any of them. He's barely played in a year, the time in the AHL will do him good.
Yes, he has been unlucky with the timing of his injury merged with covid, no real training camp, and now a shortened season in this canadian division with elite offensive talent. He would have actually needed to start in the AHL until he found his groove back but you can be sure someone would have picked him off waivers at the start of the season. There was no ideal situation. Now he's finally in a situation where he can find his game back. If you listen to Troy Mann's interview, he has a lot of NHL qualities that could allow him to have a NHL career so it wouldn't be surprising to see him find his way ala Balcers.
Now who is taking on Tierney's 4.2m salary next year?
Think about the Tierney return we could have had summer 2019 vs what we'll get now...
And yeah, exposing any of Logan Brown, Connor Brown, Nick Paul and even Vitali Abramov to protect Austin Watson would be "weird". Seattle is probably not going to pick him anyway