worst defensive defenceman ever?

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reckoning

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This is similar to the recent thread about the best defensive defencemen, except this time it`s about the worst. I`m talking mainly about guys who had long careers in the NHL as opposed to players who were only in the league briefly. Also it`s pretty common for a young blueliner to be weak defensively in his early years but get better (i.e. Larry Murphy), but I`m looking for the players who were lousy in their own end throughout their careers.

The three main ones that come to mind are:

Bryan Berard
Sandis Ozolinsh
Reed Larson

All those players were highly skilled offensively, which makes sense because if a defenceman is bad defensively, he better bring a lot of offence if he hopes to stay in the NHL.

So, who would be your choices? I`m sure a lot of people will say Paul Coffey and Phil Housely, but from what I`ve seen those two were not nearly as bad as reputations suggest.
 

alanschu

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Doh, I came in here expecting to see discussion over which defensemen, that were labelled as "defensive defensemen" were the worst. Naturally many of the offensive defensemen will take the cake here ;)
 

Staalweiser

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Apr 3, 2005
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Perhaps a more interesting discussion would be worst "defensive defenseman", i.e. one who is not supposed to be an offensive blueliner, but yet doesn't really do the best job as a stay-at-home type.
 

mattihp

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Sandis Ozolinsh has only been bad defensively outside Anaheim. When on Anaheim he in some way seems to be pretty decent defensively... It used to be the same for Tverdovsky.
 

gary69

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JeremieLepine19 said:
Perhaps a more interesting discussion would be worst "defensive defenseman", i.e. one who is not supposed to be an offensive blueliner, but yet doesn't really do the best job as a stay-at-home type.

I thought the thread would about that, so I'm gonna throw a couple of names here of d-men who played over 200 games and had below 100 pts, and didn't do too well on +/- either:

Barry Melrose 300 gms, 33 pts, -159
Gord Smith 299 gms, 39 pts, -137
 

wedge

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gary69 said:
I thought the thread would about that, so I'm gonna throw a couple of names here of d-men who played over 200 games and had below 100 pts, and didn't do too well on +/- either:

Barry Melrose 300 gms, 33 pts, -159
Gord Smith 299 gms, 39 pts, -137

If you're talking about a defensive defenseman, my vote goes to Robert Dirk who, in Montreal, was awful and couldn't turn left.

if you're talking about d-men in general, yes, I say Andy Delmore.
 

Crusher20

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Feb 27, 2002
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Bobby Gregoire, he play in the alley and man, does he ever suck... always waiting in front of opponent goalie to score goals.. :P

kidding
 

td_ice

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Aug 13, 2005
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reckoning said:
This is similar to the recent thread about the best defensive defencemen, except this time it`s about the worst. I`m talking mainly about guys who had long careers in the NHL as opposed to players who were only in the league briefly. Also it`s pretty common for a young blueliner to be weak defensively in his early years but get better (i.e. Larry Murphy), but I`m looking for the players who were lousy in their own end throughout their careers.

The three main ones that come to mind are:

Bryan Berard
Sandis Ozolinsh
Reed Larson

All those players were highly skilled offensively, which makes sense because if a defenceman is bad defensively, he better bring a lot of offence if he hopes to stay in the NHL.

So, who would be your choices? I`m sure a lot of people will say Paul Coffey and Phil Housely, but from what I`ve seen those two were not nearly as bad as reputations suggest.

Coffey??? As bad defensively as his rep? No, probably worse. Coffey was the most amazing Off. dmen I have ever seen. (Orr before my time.) Coffey was the fastest skater in a game I have ever seen. But he was horrible on defense. He simply did put much effort or desire into the def. part of his game. He would be great at getting the puck out of his own end, rushing up, making a break out pass.

So in that aspect, puck control, he was good in the def. zone. But without the puck. He looked lost, or uninterested in any contact.

I loved his game, but he was weak defensively.

Reminds me of Deion Sanders. Deion is probably the best cover man I have seen, but he does not tackle, so he is very one dimensional. The best in one area, extremely weak in another. Imo that is Coffey.
 

Oilers1*

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td_ice said:
Coffey??? As bad defensively as his rep? No, probably worse. Coffey was the most amazing Off. dmen I have ever seen. (Orr before my time.) Coffey was the fastest skater in a game I have ever seen. But he was horrible on defense. He simply did put much effort or desire into the def. part of his game. He would be great at getting the puck out of his own end, rushing up, making a break out pass.

So in that aspect, puck control, he was good in the def. zone. But without the puck. He looked lost, or uninterested in any contact.

I loved his game, but he was weak defensively.

Reminds me of Deion Sanders. Deion is probably the best cover man I have seen, but he does not tackle, so he is very one dimensional. The best in one area, extremely weak in another. Imo that is Coffey.

You must have only watched Coffey when he played for the Blackhawks. Coffey could dominate in the defensive zone because of his speed and hockey sense; he did lose alot of one-on-one battles but he was not your typical all-finesse offensive D-man. Check out his penalty minutes; seven times in his career he topped 100 PIM in a season. Alot of them were because of hauling guys down when he was out-of-position but, regardless, that's not the actions of a player who, 'doesn't care'.

Yeah, Coffey didn't spend alot of time in his own zone but he didn't have to; once he got the puck on his stick, he was going full-speed the other way within a couple of strides and, in his day, full-speed for Paul Coffey meant twice as fast as any other player on the ice.

Mike Keenan has commented about how he used Coffey in a limited, specialist role in the '87 Canada Cup and Coff never complained about it, just did his job. However, once they got to the finals and were in tough time against the Russians, Coffey looked at Keenan and just said, 'play me'. Coffey became one of their most effective defenders after that because his speed allowed him to keep up with Russian forwards and his hockey sense kept him from getting fooled by alot of their unusual techniques.

Would I ask Coffey to shut down a Mario Lemieux? Nope. But to say he did not play defense is erroneous. I would certainly take Coffey's defensive game over guys like Housley, Ozolinsh, Berard, etc. I would say he's certainly on par with Leetch and MacInnis, for example.
 

looooob

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Laraque27 said:
Would I ask Coffey to shut down a Mario Lemieux? Nope. But to say he did not play defense is erroneous. I would certainly take Coffey's defensive game over guys like Housley, Ozolinsh, Berard, etc. I would say he's certainly on par with Leetch and MacInnis, for example.

early career Al MacInnis perhaps, but I would argue he's been a very high end defensive defenceman the last 60% of his career...better defensively than Coffey...IMO

edit: another name to throw out there for discussion, albeit in a shorter career was Kari Eloranta...they didn't call him "Scary Kari" for nothing
 

Bring Back Bucky

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td_ice said:
Coffey??? As bad defensively as his rep? No, probably worse. Coffey was the most amazing Off. dmen I have ever seen. (Orr before my time.) Coffey was the fastest skater in a game I have ever seen. But he was horrible on defense. He simply did put much effort or desire into the def. part of his game. He would be great at getting the puck out of his own end, rushing up, making a break out pass.

So in that aspect, puck control, he was good in the def. zone. But without the puck. He looked lost, or uninterested in any contact.

I loved his game, but he was weak defensively.

Reminds me of Deion Sanders. Deion is probably the best cover man I have seen, but he does not tackle, so he is very one dimensional. The best in one area, extremely weak in another. Imo that is Coffey.


Man, I don't know what parts of coffey's career you witnessed, but I saw his prime, and any poor press he got was simply due to how great he was offensively. With limited offensive skils he would have still been a quality big leaguer..
 

Ogopogo*

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Bring Back Bucky said:
Man, I don't know what parts of coffey's career you witnessed, but I saw his prime, and any poor press he got was simply due to how great he was offensively. With limited offensive skils he would have still been a quality big leaguer..

I agree. Many people say Coffey was bad defensively simply because he was so good offensively. They really have no idea, they just say it because to score that much you gotta be irresponsible in your own end, right?

It is a myth. Coffey was pretty good defensively.
 

Bruwinz37

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Feb 27, 2002
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ManInTheBox said:
Ian Moran.

A bad defenseman who makes bad plays.

Disagree. He was actually not bad in Boston. Berard on the other hand was much, much worse. Jarno Kultainen is up there too.
 

LePoche69

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Jul 15, 2004
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Ogopogo said:
I agree. Many people say Coffey was bad defensively simply because he was so good offensively. They really have no idea, they just say it because to score that much you gotta be irresponsible in your own end, right?

It is a myth. Coffey was pretty good defensively.

Well I saw his whole career and I think the rality is somewhere between all the comments I read before the quoted one.

To me, Coffey was amazing offensively, but average defensively. I'm not saying he was bad, tho.

I remember back then, surprisingly, the Montreal Canadiens used to beat the Oilers quite often (in the regular season!!!!) depsite having a much worse team. One day, Mats Naslund said that one of the tactics was to always enter the Oilers' zone by the Coffey's side.
 

Mister Hockey

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Bruwinz37 said:
Disagree. He was actually not bad in Boston. Berard on the other hand was much, much worse. Jarno Kultainen is up there too.

I didn't see much of him in Boston.

In Pittsburgh, He was on the wrong side of the ice half the time, he had no shot from the point, he had no shot at all, he would ice the puck for no reason, he couldn't stand anyone up, he was last on the team in hits, he was a minus player even though he played with all plus players. I could keep going, but what's the point.
 
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