His defensive game has been the exact same, he sometimes misses assignments and has some bad turnovers but as always his positives greatly outweigh his negatives, only now Cooper doesn't have TKO to hide behind so he's in a position where he NEEDS Drouin.
I think his defensive game has improved, but it's improved through actually making mistakes. The giveaways in particular. I mean, yeah, his player type is ALWAYS going to have some giveaways, but Drouin seems to learn from his mistakes, at least until he gets TOO confident with his puck-handling. At that point he'll sometimes repeat them. But, for instance, I think the empty net goal that was scored against us because of a Drouin mistake a few games back was probably a much better detriment than the 4th line duty ever was.
Drouin's defensive game is a lot calmer now. It used to be all hustle, but, as was pointed out by a few people here, he was basically just chasing the puck sometimes. (I feel like Stamkos was guilty of this under Boucher too.) Very early on, I mean. He seems better positionally to me. But the biggest improvement is how often he steals pucks. He's always been good at it, but it seems like he picks somebody's pocket once per game now, and, with the kind of speed he possesses, he can easily create some havoc at the other end when he catches the other team skating the wrong way.
I've always been convinced that this is a special player. I've been watching hockey a long time, and he does things I don't think I've ever seen. I don't think I've ever seen, for instance, a player actually make defenders FALL DOWN this regularly, by trying to keep up with his shifts and pivots. I think these past couple of weeks have shown us what he's capable of. I don't know if he can do that consistently, but, I mean... he's playing on a line with Val Filppula and Brian Boyle--last year, that would mean he was STILL on the fourth line--and he scored 7 goals in 7 games.
