We know your math says one thing. Our eyes say something else. Stralman stuck out twice to me last night, and neither instance was a positive one. He wasn't bad, but he didn't look like anything more than he is--a 3rd pair D on a good team. You keep arguing your point as if your advanced math is 100% of the story, but how many coaches now have deployed Stralman on the 3rd pair? How many coaches have ranked our big 4 over him (based on a significant difference in minutes played)? Even Torts, who was a big supporter of Stralsy, outright said that he didn't want him playing big minutes.
Most of the fans and ALL of the professionals disagree with what your math is saying. You act as if that means all of us/them are wrong and we/they just need to read more of your attempts to parse math into on-ice reality. What that SHOULD say to you is that you might want to consider why just about nobody sees the player the way you and your math do. When you are in a room by yourself (and maybe a couple other people, none of whom are professionals), the problem just might be with your methodology or its relevance.
You seem to think I look up the stat sheets after games and pretend I've seen them. That is not at all how it is.
The stats have clued me in to important areas to observe while watching the games. Like breakouts and zone entries for example. I have observed how Girardi gets himself and the Rangers into trouble in their own zone a lot. But the thing is, he is doing it in a "defensible" way. He is constantly getting into situations where you can basically say "what was he supposed to do", and sure with the situation being what it was he made the right decision but he shouldn't be getting into them at all.
A lot of coaches misuse their defencemen massively, and GMs are also pretty bad at identifying them correctly as well.
Case in point, Robyn Regehr on the top pairing in LA when Muzzin-Doughty were dominant last season. Now Sutter is thinking about scratching Muzzin over one giveaway. Terrible short-sighted coaching.
Some GMs are terrible at distinguishing PMDs from defencemen with skill. Some have effective transition games and tilt the ice in their team's favour, others just pick up points and/or play the PP well.
PMDs: Karlsson, Letang, Doughty, Visnovsky, Boyle, Ehrhoff
"PMDs": J. Johnson, Phaneuf, Fowler, Del Zotto, Streit, R. Whitney
Everyone seems to think Whitney suddenly just fell of. Sure his skating got worse after his injury,
but he always kind of sucked.
And not ALL professionals disagree. Chicago, San José, Detroit, and Ottawa seem to share very similar views on how to build an effective team.