That's just not true at all.
Offensive defensemen are unfairly criticized on this site for the most part.
Not here on HF NYR. Not when they're the shiny new toy. This place was still drooling to sign EK when it was clear how he was aging. Didn't matter to us bc he still had points. It was frothing at the mouth over the deal we legit got for Shattenkirk bc this place thought he would still be good even when the fanbases that had just watched him were all pointing out huge holes in his game. It's a theme around here. We do it with forwards too. Everything here is about points and then we're shocked when these guys turn out to be car crashes. They don't do anything good when they're not scoring. They often are a detriment otherwise.
Even after we see Yandle flame out, this place is still so desperately in love with point producing dmen that it's voting for him in droves. I WISH AV would have played him the way Skjei has been played. He'd have had more points and we'd have despised him for being an absolute mess defensively because he'd have been in over his head just like Skjei.
I think Leetch spoiled people and it's incredibly difficult to use him as the measuring stick.
Likewise, I suspect there's a good possibility we see a similar dilemma in the post-Lundqvist years.
I never watched Leetch.
Roszival, Tyutin, Staal, Girardi, Sauer, McD, Stralman. These are top 4 guys we've had that I've seen. Comparing them to Yandle and Yandle was way below their level when he was here. Roszi was despised here despite being way better when he was here then Yandle was when he was here. But Yandle put up points. The perception was that Roszi came up short in the points department so there were frequent discussions where people hated Roszi. Then there were talks about how much of an unfair whipping boy he was.
Skjei is actually in a similar boat. The perception is he is coming up well short of where we wanted him and he isn't putting up a lot of points so this place hates him (Even though he's been asked to play WAY above his ability)
