I definitely despised him as a player. I don't know if any advanced stats track when a defenseman was on the ice for a goal against in a tie game, but I bet his with the Avalanche would be absurdly high. I also don't remember him having very good wheels.
You're not wrong about Zads. I love the man and wish we kept him over Graves, but he was beyond terrible on the PK.
I think you'd be a little surprised. Remember he rode shotgun with Barrie on the 2nd pairing and didn't necessarily look out of place. Much as it's a useless stat, his +27 that season indicates he wasn't on the ice for a ton of goals against, unless they were all scored when he was killing penalties. His play-driving numbers, as you'd expect, are not great, but he's something like 8th in overal Corsi on the Wings, who are of course an absolutely TERRIBLE hockey team, especially on defense. His offensive numbers that first year in Detroit are much better than you would expect, but I imagine that was because he was getting fed a ton of minutes on a team that was intentionally tanking.
I get that he's not a great player, but man, for a guy picked up at the 11th hour off of waivers, he was insanely good value at the time. He's no All-Star, but he's no Guenin either.
Personally speaking, I liked him better than Cole. Zadorov obviously had more talent and size, but also just...can't play defense below the hashmarks.