I mean, Pesce played his off hand when he played with Faulk in Carolina and they played at a high level together, so it's not like he can't do it or doesn't have experience with it.
I'm not sure that Pesce is going to be the primary puck mover on any defensive pairing he's on. I'm just not sure it's nearly as big of a deal as people want to to make it out to be.
Ultimately, we will see what happens, but I feel like the most likely outcomes are Pesce is added, Marino stays or Pesce is simply not added.
In third place, I'd have Pesce is added, Marino is traded.
I mean, that's fair i guess. One year like half a decade ago, he played with Faulk a little less than half the time, and a little more LD as well. I just really wouldn't count on that whatsoever. More of an anomalous circumstances thing.
Personally, i think it's actually significantly
more important than most fans seem to make it out to be. Idgaf about LHD playing RD if they're comfortable there. Lots of them are. It's really over the top when coaches are overly sticklers about
that. But i think there are a lot of very good reasons that coaches will only ever play two Righties together on Defence as an absolute last resort. And why it's limiting in terms of roster construction to overload with them like that.
It's not really purely about "puck moving" per se. Lots of great LH shooting puck movers are actually
better on their off side. But it's something that takes time and experience to build up that comfort level with...which is something that very few RH shooting D ever go through, due to scarcity at pretty much every level. Though as a caveat...if there's
any country's defencemen who might have RH experience playing their off side, it's the US where right handed people shooting right is far more common than anywhere else.
I'd say it's almost
more important when it's a guy like Pesce who is more of an "easy out" type of defenceman rather than an aggressive primary puck mover. That's where it's even more important for it to become firmly ingrained that all of those "easy outlets" are going to be exactly where they expect them relative to their positioning on the ice. Where it's almost muscle memory for those off the glass and out, up the boards, rim arounds type clearing and pressure alleviating plays. Even just basic things like those D-to-D exchanges...suddenly you're asking a less than amazing puckhandler to start making and receiving all of those little routine passes on his backhand.
More often than not, it creates stupid bobbles and mistakes on simple routine plays that wouldn't otherwise happen. It also tends to lead to things like "drifting" positionally. Where you get "you take it, whose got it" miscommunications. Stupid little mistakes that aren't typical of the player, but pop up when they're uncomfortable.
But especially, it's limiting to things like how you can set up your PK to attack and defend lanes. It changes all the accessible angles and lanes...and having only one LH shooting PK defenceman in your lineup just inherently limits your options there. It's also one of the biggest things where LH shooters playing RD isn't a big deal to me...but having
all LH shooting D can start to become a problem.
The biggest thing to me though, is that
if the Devils land Pesce (probably not as much of a given as everyone including myself are taking it here)...the likelihood is that because of his RH Shot...the Devils could take advantage of scarcity and the "premium value" of RHD to either upgrade at LHD where they clearly need help more anyway...or at least generate some "surplus value" on a comparable replacement (maybe even via UFA) while still leaving them assets to go out and get whatever else they want to upgrade in the lineup as well. While still having 3 solid RHD in Dougie/Pesce/Nemec who will eat up every second of those minutes you can throw at them.
But this is all probably putting the cart before the horse. Far from a certainty that they land Pesce, even if the nature of these sudden and compelling rumors out of left field suggest it may be happening.
