We boo Phaneuf because he constantly starts crap and never EVER answers for it. He is a dishonorable player.
I don't like Erik Karlsson. I think he looks like he's in the three musketeers. Mostly though, I just don't like his style of play. It's like the old Paul Coffey/Ray Bourque debate. Yeah, Coffey scored more points but if you thought he was a better player than Bourque, you were crazy. I grew up with that aesthetic. Your D-men are supposed to be tough, insanely hard to score on and the best of them were great offensively too, but that was their secondary objective. The offense first D is a player type that I've always had a chip on my shoulder about.
This series changed all of that. I've been watching Karlsson play for years like all of you, but if you hold an inherent bias against his style, you can talk yourself out of his greatness by watching 10ish games a year spread out over 8 months. When you watch 6 games in a week, your bias cant hold up to that kind of barrage. It's built on sand and the foundation cracks pretty quickly.
Karlsson is not the best one on one defender, but he is pretty good and within the structure of his team, its impossible to get pucks out of the corner with him there. More importantly, he is the entire engine of the team. He pushes the pace, he holds the puck and he is just smarter than almost every other player on the ice. My own preconceived notions have been shattered by what I just watched. That pass to Hoffman was one of the greatest feats of hockey ability I have ever seen. The vision, the decision making, the sheer physical talent to whip the puck 180 feet, 15 feet in the air to land in the exact spot it needed to be was sublime.
I'm 37 years old and have been watching hockey since I was 7. I've NEVER respected a guy with Karlsson's style more than I respect him. What a player. I'm rooting for the Sens this round completely because I want to watch more.