a Dman who cant play D?
serious question, what are you basing this on? Last years Covid year?
His first full rookie season he was fine defensively and in the playoffs he was awesome. Hughes was playing 20+ minutes a night and was never considered a liability or had to be benched against heavy teams like Minny, St Louis and Vegas.
for comparison,
In you opinion can Dahlin play Defence?
Dahlin is a career -56
Yet for some weird reason, I dont hear the same narrative with Dahlin that he cant play defence.
I think the lack of defence for Hughes has been great exaggerated especially considering he hasnt had a consistent D partner for more than 1 season at a time.
Is he going to ever be a defensive horse, no,
but you live with it because what he gives you when he has the puck on his stick is at an elite elite level.
Basing it on watching him play and constantly get exploited in his own end. As for the playoff run, the entire Blues team was recovering from covid, that played a massive part in how the first round went. Also no, neither can Dahlin at this point, but he is also on a faaaar worse team so you have to take that into consideration. Plus minus is the most useles stat, but check with teams from the Atlantic/East, everyone says the same thing about Dahlin.
He may or may not be a defensive horse at some point, I wont debate that. But he has lots of room to improve on his defensive game. Watch him in puck battles, positioning or making plays in his own zone under pressure. He looks lost out there and usually running around all over the place or getting bullied off the puck.
FWIW I would take him on my team in a heartbeat even as he currently is, but a lot of defensive flaws.