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Leaf Rumours

Guess who player a and b are.


Player A: 82 gms, 12 gls, 44 pts, 25:17 mins, 214 hits, 127 blocks, 1.4 (corsi rel, quality of comp), -0.4 (corsi on)

Player B: 78 gms 19 gls, 49 pts, 26:10 mins, 177 hits, 140 blocks, 1.3 (corsi rel, quality of comp), -0.9 (corsi on)
 
MindzEye said:
Cheers

To address the nitpicking

- Suter's top end offensive ability keeps him out of the elite tier imo. I think Suter's 46 points from last year is pretty much as big an offensive impact as he's going to have. Weber is just more toolsy offensively, I can see the potential for more offensive growth there.

- It's hard to put Doughty in that tier after the last 2 seasons he's had. He was a complete stud in the playoffs, and is pretty likely to end up in the elite tier at some point, but 2 disappointing regular seasons in a row are what they are.

- The argument can be made for McD to be in the 2nd tier...still can't believe Montreal gave that guy up for Scott Gomez. But, he has the distinct pleasure of playing in front of a goalie that will tend to make a lot of defenders look good (see the Dan Girardi epic over rating). I wouldn't be shocked if he had another really strong season and cemented himself as a legit top 15 workhorse this season though.
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Fair points. Iif Suter cements himself as a 45 point player while being an elite shutdown d, he has to be in the top tier IMO.. but you're right, last year could have easily been an anomaly and he probably won't ever top that.. and who knows how good he'll be without Weber for a full season. I think very highly of him defensively though. No holes in his game at all IMO.

Doughty is definitely below the Chara's of the league, but something has to be said about his playoffs. Sure it's a smaller sample size, but damn he was an absolute stud in the biggest possible stage.

Couldn't be happier McD isn't a Hab, and you're right about Lundy making several of their d look good.. I was so damn impressed with his work in the playoffs though and I like him much more than Girardi. I'm normally not much of a fan of stay at home-ish defenders, so it's saying a lot for me to include him in the 2nd tier. Another season like last year, and he has to be in that tier. You're probably right to put him in the third tier for now though.
 
Metalleaf said:
Doughty's career was pretty ****ing similar to Phaneuf's. Including the drop in offensive production and the large contract that everyone questioned. Doughty had excellent goaltending, something Phaneuf hasn't had the luxury of.
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Of course. But Doughty has proven more than Phaneuf at this point. Dion hasn't been anywhere near as good in the playoffs as Doughty was this past year. He never played shutdown minutes against top lines and still struggled defensively. Has he matured and improved as a player since then? Of course, and he would probably be a lot better in the playoffs moving forward but until he proves that, you have to rank Doughty ahead of him. He was an impact player and #1 d on a cup winning team. You can't just negate that because he wasn't as good during the season.
 
Yup, these two have similar offensive and defensive stats/metrics, yet they are looked upon completely differently.

Imo, there's only 1 player in the 1st tier now that lidstrom has retired - chara. He's consistently elite offensively and defensively every year. Then you have a group of about 10-15 guys consisting of players with only 1 elite season under their belts and/or players who in any given year can be a Norris contender, but are subject to down years. Phaneuf is in this group.
 
It's no coincidence that the only top dmen with absolutely rock solid defensive reputations - Chara, Weber, Suter - have all been playing in front of elite of elite of elite goaltending.

Chara was starting to hear it about being slow and awkward when thomas struggled to start last year, though.
 
This is one of the worst eras for high-end defencemen in NHL history. Probably the worst since the mid 1960s.

Bourque retired (top five all-time).
Lidstrom retired (top five all-time).
Blake retired (top fifty all-time).
Niedermayer retired (top thirty all-time)
Leetch retired (top twenty all-time).
Stevens retired (top twenty all-time).
Chelios retired (top ten all-time).
MacInnis retired (top twenty all-time).
Pronger's melon is done as a result of concussions (top twenty all-time).
 
People used to realize that even the best defensemen would get beat, but for some reason nowadays getting deked out once means you suck defensively.
 
I think that has a lot to with all the media that exists and the 24 hour sports station. Phaneuf makes a mistake, its repeated on sportscentre every half hour. Weber is very lucky he plays in Nashville. I think his reputation would have taken a bit of a hit after some time in a bigger market like philly.
 
The fact that practically every mistake the D has made ended up in the back of the net doesn't help either. Phaneuf would look a lot better with Rinne playing behind him.
 
I remember years ago watching Wendel Clark beat Lidstrom along the boards and score a goal. All defencemen have their lapses.
 
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