Individually and collectively bad. Why not both?
Nurse was best during the time frame of Mclellan and Tippett. Coaches that can even scheme D priority systems and do. Without that Nurse is a 4D at best.
Ceci is a 6 D, Kulak in Montreal was a 7D. Desharnais and Broberg are not even close to NHL level D. They shouldn't even have been here. Ekholm on a responsible team is a 2-3D, he's not the guy.
Booch is an offensive weapon but defensively incapable. Due to his offense you want him with skill but that means he's playing against skill...
We don't have anything close to a 1D
The only D we've had in a long time that thrilled me was Tyson Barrie, but more due to the offensive capability and prowess working with superstars.
Our D is the dogs breakfast served up when the GM mostly things that anything is good enough.
Our goaltending manages to be worse.
I feel you, I am myself getting to point where I want to throw the baby, the littles ducks, and even the dog, with the bath water.
I think individually we have players that play way below theirs individual skill level and to me coaching is the biggest offender.
Its all cool to look at boston and just try to copy paste their defensive structure but Its completely disconnected to think you have the personal to acheve that. Now you can say its not woodcroft fault he doesn't get x y z player for his game plan but which coach does?
To me your job as a coach is to establish strategy and systems that enhance the player you inherited. Woodcroft is alergic to that. He openly stated he dosent belive in the conept of line matching, kind of the dumbest thing I ever hear a coach at the nhl level say. For him, every line play the same system, its doesn't adapt to individual skills.
We end up in a team half buying into a system that expose theirs flaw and doesn't enhance theirs strengths. Hence why I said that they collectively suck much more than individually.