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Aaron Ekblad discussion thread

Gentle Man said:
I'll never get the hate for Campbell.

Guy had an NTC and never forced his way out while playing for shit owners and a tanking GM.

Tallon even sent players away after his speech about he only wants guys that want to be a Panther.

Must have hurt seeing Chicago win cups while he played THROUGH his contract like a professional
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I really don't get it either he was one of the best dman the franchise has had and played lights out while he was here. I'd argue he had his best years as a Sabre and Panther at least from an individual stand point.
 
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Gentle Man said:
You can argue Campbell played with a defensively thin team THROUGHOUT his stint in Florida

View attachment 664880

Literally every single guy we had was a negative except him. He was the only one to somehow still be a positive playing a D core like that.

View attachment 664881

He was also a positive for possession metrics through the 5 years and we all know how shit our forwards and teams were through 2 of those seasons.

Nothing against Svehla at all, he did well with us. But Campbell never had a Pavel Bure + in Florida. Barkov and Huby were young and Jagr was old.
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Again, I never once said Soupy wasn't good in Florida. He was really good, but that still doesn't make him the best D-man in team history.

And Svehla only had Bure for the latter part of his career and his production actually dropped during those years because the team was so dogshit the last couple years. Bure's name carries little weight in this discussion.

Campbell by all accounts was awesome in a Panthers sweater, but Svehla, in my opinion, was better all around. Svehla put up nearly 60 points with Scott Mellanby as the team's leading scorer, a year in which he had the best numbers of his career.

You are seriously downplaying the effect that Robert Svehla had on those teams. I will say this again, Campbell was great with the Cats but his best years were before him by then. He was a huge part of those mid-2000's Sabres teams and had Norris consideration in those seasons.

Anyway, this thread is getting severely off topic. As for Ekblad, I worry his injuries may be too much to come back from. Realistically we won't trade him now or in the off-season when his value is low. Give him the summer to heal and see if he comes back looking like his old self in the fall. Otherwise it may be time to cut our losses and move on to someone else as #1. If his injuries are too much to come back from it's unfortunate but it may be a reality the team has to face.
 
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ProjectPanthers said:
Again, I never once said Soupy wasn't good in Florida. He was really good, but that still doesn't make him the best D-man in team history.

And Svehla only had Bure for the latter part of his career and his production actually dropped during those years because the team was so dogshit the last couple years. Bure's name carries little weight in this discussion.

Campbell by all accounts was awesome in a Panthers sweater, but Svehla, in my opinion, was better all around. Svehla put up nearly 60 points with Scott Mellanby as the team's leading scorer, a year in which he had the best numbers of his career.

You are seriously downplaying the effect that Robert Svehla had on those teams. I will say this again, Campbell was great with the Cats but his best years were before him by then. He was a huge part of those mid-2000's Sabres teams and had Norris consideration in those seasons.

Anyway, this thread is getting severely off topic. As for Ekblad, I worry his injuries may be too much to come back from. Realistically we won't trade him now or in the off-season when his value is low. Give him the summer to heal and see if he comes back looking like his old self in the fall. Otherwise it may be time to cut our losses and move on to someone else as #1. If his injuries are too much to come back from it's unfortunate but it may be a reality the team has to face.
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And Soupy put up his 53 with Fleischmann or Weiss or Versteeg as his best forward.

I'm not downplaying anything at all. I know what Svehla did. He had far better teams than Soupy did.

Far better.
 
Ek is the best dman in Florida history if we use “expected good minutes” as the metric.
 
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Ekblad spectating Koepka's next tournament.


SuLFWk-v5ok1T40CgecFqEb87LAqrXndq9DKac1IgME.jpg
 
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It’s nice to see him step it up here as of late. He’s had a bad season overall but it helps to see him play more like what we’d expect from him in the last stretch here.

That golf guy got his 5 minutes of fame. Ekblad can shut him up for good by keeping his play trending in the upward direction
 
Necrobutcher said:
Seems like he shows up when it matters the most. If we get in the playoffs and he keeps up playing like this i personally consider his season 100% salvaged.
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I know it’s cool around here to trash the guy, to say how awful his skating is, and he is a real traffic cone and all…

That’s not really my stance, even though I think he took his training/improving too lightly in his early career, and I’m mad about it.

But there is ONE thing Ek has always been and IMO will always be…

The guy is CLUTCH offensively. Always has been.
 
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BabyBennettov said:
I know it’s cool around here to trash the guy, to say how awful his skating is, and he is a real traffic cone and all…

That’s not really my stance, even though I think he took his training/improving too lightly in his early career, and I’m mad about it.

But there is ONE thing Ek has always been and IMO will always be…

The guy is CLUTCH offensively. Always has been.
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My issue is his skating IS bad, and he doesn't work on it at all.
 
I think his skating isn't the issue. His decision making is. He should not put himself out of position where he has to be an above average skater to get back in the play. He skates forward far too often, and far too far forward. He needs to stop trying to prove to everybody that he's a better skater than he really is.
These last few games he hasn't moved out of his position nearly as much. And he's had way less issues. Because skating is overrated. Puck handling is underrated. Which he can do. But he's too fixated on his skating.
 
Howboutthempanthers said:
I think his skating isn't the issue. His decision making is. He should not put himself out of position where he has to be an above average skater to get back in the play. He skates forward far too often, and far too far forward. He needs to stop trying to prove to everybody that he's a better skater than he really is.
These last few games he hasn't moved out of his position nearly as much. And he's had way less issues. Because skating is overrated. Puck handling is underrated. Which he can do. But he's too fixated on his skating.
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Honestly they should use him like they did Brent Burns for a while as a RW.
 
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ProjectPanthers said:
Again, I never once said Soupy wasn't good in Florida. He was really good, but that still doesn't make him the best D-man in team history.

And Svehla only had Bure for the latter part of his career and his production actually dropped during those years because the team was so dogshit the last couple years. Bure's name carries little weight in this discussion.

Campbell by all accounts was awesome in a Panthers sweater, but Svehla, in my opinion, was better all around. Svehla put up nearly 60 points with Scott Mellanby as the team's leading scorer, a year in which he had the best numbers of his career.

You are seriously downplaying the effect that Robert Svehla had on those teams. I will say this again, Campbell was great with the Cats but his best years were before him by then. He was a huge part of those mid-2000's Sabres teams and had Norris consideration in those seasons.

Anyway, this thread is getting severely off topic. As for Ekblad, I worry his injuries may be too much to come back from. Realistically we won't trade him now or in the off-season when his value is low. Give him the summer to heal and see if he comes back looking like his old self in the fall. Otherwise it may be time to cut our losses and move on to someone else as #1. If his injuries are too much to come back from it's unfortunate but it may be a reality the team has to face.
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I feel like this "Svehla is best dman in cats history" is a hipster opinion. It's been over 20 yrs since he last played a game for us so time is kind to a player like him. He was a solid dman. Very consistent and dependable. But was he the best we've ever had? Maybe being consistently a tick above-average is enough to get you as best cats dman EVARRR, but I do think Campbell was our best dman. Guy made his partner into a superstar and quietly shut down the best players in the league on a night-in night-out basis. Wish we had him for longer.
 
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