Is the 2016 -2017 D' better than we think ?

[Mr. Make-Believe]

...

Not sure if they are underrated, but I would ask this:

How do we compare this defense with the one we saw go to the Finals in 2013?

Chara today not quite what he was.

Carlo having an arguably stronger rookie season in his own zone than Douglas Hamilton.

Krug better and more experienced than he was as a rookie.

Kevan Miller better than Andy Ference, but not nearly as strong as Boychuk.

McQuaid has noticeably improved.

Seidenberg gone.(that's a minus)

Colin Miller, JM Liles better depth players than Wade Redden and Matt Bartkowski.

Could equal cases be made either way?

 

[BruinDust]

Given how they're performing this year, it seems like the entire D corps took the "trust" given to them by the FO this summer very seriously and really amped it up. I've been thoroughly impressed, especially after correctly predicting before last season that the D would be absolutely abysmal.

I think so, and they also took it upon themselves in the off-season to work on things that needed improvement. These guys aren't dumb, they seen the need for better skating/mobility and put the work in to improve in those areas. Last year the D was big and slow, now they are big and but with average overall speed. Meaning they can still have issues with really fast fore-checking teams, but they are now better equipped to handle it and it isn't as easy to exploit.

So the D went from what was predicted to be awful to what I would call mid-range. It's not the best D group in the game, but it's far from the worst.

 

[BruinDust]

...

Not sure if they are underrated, but I would ask this:

How do we compare this defense with the one we saw go to the Finals in 2013?

Chara today not quite what he was.

Carlo having an arguably stronger rookie season in his own zone than Douglas Hamilton.

Krug better and more experienced than he was as a rookie.

Kevan Miller better than Andy Ference, but not nearly as strong as Boychuk.

McQuaid has noticeably improved.

Seidenberg gone.(that's a minus)

Colin Miller, JM Liles better depth players than Wade Redden and Matt Bartkowski.

Could equal cases be made either way?

Depends on what group you believe made it to the finals. For example Hamilton was a regular in the regular season but became a spare part in the playoffs. Redden started the Leaf series, and by the end we saw Bartkowski due to injuries to Seidenberg and Ference.

The core playoff group to me once they got healthy was

Chara
Seidenberg
Ference
Boychuk
Krug
McQuaid

3 of the 6 are still here. The 3rd pair are now the 2nd, but both are improved players from 2013, in Krug's case vastly improved IMO, in particular his own end.

Chara isn't the Chara of 2013, but still a very effective player.

So really how does Kevan Miller, Carlo, and Liles/Colin compare to Ference, Boychuk, and Seidenberg?

I'd would have to give the edge to Ference/Boychuk/Seidenberg, and to the 2013 group as a whole, but the gap isn't as massive as one would think.

 

[Alberta_OReilly_Fan]

Lots of criticism of the B's defensemen, individually and as a unit, the entire year.

Chara not a #1, a pylon, all washed up
Krug, not a top 4, weak in his own end
K. Miller/A. McQuaid 5/6 D'men on a good team. Redundant, only need one.
Carlo over his head, hit the wall, should be a 2nd or 3rd pair.

We've heard it all, and looking at an individual game here and there you can
make these points stick. But look at the collective. Number 11 in Goals against,
tied with the Blackhawks. ( http://www.nhl.com/stats/team?aggre...17&filter=gamesPlayed,gte,1&sort=goalsAgainst )

I would imagine most if not all would trade the B's D, with the Blackhawks D straight up. As a unit, are these guys :

• better than what most thnk they are ?
• shortfalls covered by goaltending ?
• Smoke and Mirrors ?

I think these guys just work well as a unit, and the Team D, is good. Hope it continues all the way thru the cup finals.

d is a team effort... our forward group works hard to help our backend guys... and rask is very good when hes on his game

as individuals its difficult to rank our d in the top 2/3 of units but effort and game planning gets more out of our guys than alot of other teams will manage

all in all having great dmen is often overrated. other than montreal with their big 3 how often have we seen thr team with the best dmen win the cup?

who were our dmen when we won?

having 1 great dman seems to help alot but even saying that, we didnt win with bourque.

you point out the critisms of our d... i feel they are all valid except for chara. if healthy he is still a game changer.

but krug does get overmatched. his huge minus rating is a problem and does cost us games. if he could be sheltered more it would be better

carlo is being rushed. its not usually a good idea to rush young dmen

killer/macquaid are not above average mobile and do duplicate each others strength and weakness

our d gets the job done but there is no one that can step up if we get hit by injuries. everyone is slotted at their ceiling

what made us better in our cup win was boychuk could step up and play a 3role... ference could step up and play a 4 role

karberle was brought in to play big mins but when he failed we were able to compensate

seidenberg really stepped it up and was almost charas equal

i dont see anyone other than chara that would be guaranteed to be top 3 on any of the 8 best teams this playoff

so... i think we get the most out of what we have... but we need better to be considered good enough

 

[Dennis Bonvie]

d is a team effort... our forward group works hard to help our backend guys... and rask is very good when hes on his game

as individuals its difficult to rank our d in the top 2/3 of units but effort and game planning gets more out of our guys than alot of other teams will manage

all in all having great dmen is often overrated. other than montreal with their big 3 how often have we seen thr team with the best dmen win the cup?

who were our dmen when we won?

having 1 great dman seems to help alot but even saying that, we didnt win with bourque.

you point out the critisms of our d... i feel they are all valid except for chara. if healthy he is still a game changer.

but krug does get overmatched. his huge minus rating is a problem and does cost us games. if he could be sheltered more it would be better

carlo is being rushed. its not usually a good idea to rush young dmen

killer/macquaid are not above average mobile and do duplicate each others strength and weakness

our d gets the job done but there is no one that can step up if we get hit by injuries. everyone is slotted at their ceiling

what made us better in our cup win was boychuk could step up and play a 3role... ference could step up and play a 4 role

karberle was brought in to play big mins but when he failed we were able to compensate

seidenberg really stepped it up and was almost charas equal

i dont see anyone other than chara that would be guaranteed to be top 3 on any of the 8 best teams this playoff

so... i think we get the most out of what we have... but we need better to be considered good enough

There you go!

5 guys play offense, 5 guys play defense. And the defensive system they use is still as good as any.