How has shatty been in NY?
The thing is, I think he is the same player he has been his entire career.
Some have looked at his stats and thought that he was a franchise D. That is what stats give you. He have never been that good, that type of D. He is very good from the blueline and in. Good RHS. Sees the ice well. He is smart. Fairly agile on the offensive blueline. Defensively many don’t see that he has been coached for half a decade or whatever by Hitchcock. And always liked by Hitch. There is a reason for that, Shatty doesn’t at all have the type of holes defensively as some envision. He is pretty comfortable defensively.
The — big — reason for why I am not his biggest fan is Shatty’s play in the transition game. Here it’s also very obvious that he has been coached by Hitch for what half a decade. Sure you will see him sling away a home run pass every now and then, low risk high reward play, if it doesn’t connect the puck is iced or worst case broken up high up ice. But he doesn’t have the speed — at all — that the modern guys have coming out of their own end, that dynamic interaction between the defenders and forwards that erases the borders between them. He doesn’t have that super poised passing game. He doesn’t at all have the moves to beat the first forechecker that is so valuable since it really blows up every trapping scheme. His transition game can only be labeled as truly Hitchcook-esque if you get what I mean. Low risk plays. Gamble in the attacking zone, sure, but just make sure to get out of your own end.
I said the exact same thing before we got him. He has been rumored to come to NY forever. I’ve always kept track of him when I’ve seen STL. I see so many in NY go ‘he hurt his knee and lost his game’, ‘he is a shell of his former self’ etc etc etc. His knee injury wasn’t even bad. His skating is the same as it has been the last 5 years. Aren’t his highlights available at nhl.com? Check the goals he scored three years ago, you will get glimpses of how he skates. Did he move differently back than? Definitely not.
Ask him to contribute from the blueline and in on a 2nd/3rd pairing and you will get production from him. He won’t be a big negative factor defensively at all, not perfect of course, but pretty ok. In the transition game he will help getting the puck up ice and push CF, but you will not at all get that element high octane offensive productive offensive game that you can get from a true top modern offensive D who will beat his forechecker 3/4 times and completly open things up.
I definitely think he should have value, so many teams are looking for RDs and you could do a lot worse. Can he get back to being a top D in the NHL and a No 1 D for his team? There is only one answer — he has never been that guy. Not even remotely... If you think that you have been scouting at hockey.corsica. You should never do that.