Nied's chafed against the conservative style of play the Devils asked him to play as well. So I don't think it's accurate to say Luke is developing on a path that is unlike Nied's path. Very similar actually imo. You kind of insinuate Luke is playing some freewheeling style of D, I'm not seeing that at all. I think Luke's D this year has been excellent.
Is Luke allowed more leeway carrying the puck? I think that is fair to say, but the game has also changed a ton since Nied's era when he was more an anomaly. Nowadays D-men carrying the puck is much more common, thus we should expect Luke to carry the puck more then Nied's did even if they are vey similar players when adjusted for era.
But Luke's D looks fantastic to my eyes. A good amount of that is his skating ability, a good amount of it is his stick work, and a good amount of it is his ability to anticipate what puck carriers are going to do. But maybe an underrated aspect of Luke's defensive game is his effort level. Sure his skating ability allows him to make up space on a hard back check, but there is a want that is necessary to make that back check possible. And I think it's seen in small space plays as well where yes a quick first step allows him to get to a puck, but there is still that quick twitch thinking which ques the physical ability. Luke has that.
I kind of question if Nemec has that. Truthfully I think his game looks a little lazy. Yes there is a polish to his game, there seems to be an intelligence to his game, but is he attacking the play in a way that we expect a big time defender to attack the play? I dunno. Maybe what I'm seeing is a guy who is not a great athlete? Maybe what I'm seeing is a guy not in great shape. Maybe these things all go hand in hand?
