Strange the people busting on Fleury for only playing 91 games as a 23 yo and he is tapped out as a prospect--yet supporting TVR who had played less than 20 NHL games at the same age. Sure, he won't ever have the offense of the 7 OA pick--but he moves better than Edmundson and can play either hand better than TVR. I wouldn't mind seeing a trade to get him more playing time and he could get more than TVR in a trade but that is because he is younger, cheaper with more upside. TVR is not a number 4 or really even a number 5--he is a solid number 6 that can fill in for a time at other spots. A Brock McGinn of defenseman.
Looking around the league (not just Winnipeg) most teams have totally crap 3rd pairings. And most teams don't have four top 4 worthy defenseman. Canes have one of the best defenses in the league, both in quality and depth. For instance, it is true TVR is #5/6 in Carolina but in Winnipeg he would currently be #1, #2 when Morrisey comes back and #3 if Buff comes back. Most teams just have to stick a guy like TVR to their top 4 due to lack of proper top 4 defensemen.
Anyways, I took a quick look around Dailyfaceoff for the lines of some NHL teams (only approximately half because I'm lazy):
ANA: Larsson-Del Zotto
ARI:
Chychryn-Oesterle
BOS: Grzelcyk-Clifton
BUF:
Scandella-Jokiharju
CAL: Kylington-Andersson
CHI: Koekkoek-Murphy
COL: Graves-Timmins
CBS: Gavrikov-Nutivaara
DAL: Oleksiak-Fedun
DET: Cholowski-Bowey
EDM: Russel-Benning
FLO:
Yandle-Pysyk
LAK: Hutton-Walker
MIN: Soucy-Hunt
MON: Kulak-Fleuru
NAS: Irwin-Weber
NJD: Butcher-Carrick
NYI:
Leddy-
Dobson
There are couple promising youngsters who are eased into NHL (Dobson, Jokiharju etc.) Then there are some pairings which are more like 2nd pairings but for some reason listed as 3rd (Yandle-Pysyk, Leddy-Dobson). But if you ignore these outliers, most of the 3rd pairing players in NHL are AHL/NHL tweeners, waiver pickups etc.
But yeah, long response but my point is that TVR is at least a #5. We, Canes fans are just too spoiled seeing Dougie, Slavin, Pesce, even Faulk in the lineup.