* Up to Sbisa speed.
I mean, he's not as extravagantly terrible as Kuli is managing to be now, game in and game out, but his game is so simple that it's essentially moving back and forth in a small window of ice and not screwing it up on every shift -- except when he has to, say, clear the zone without banging it round the boards to an opposition player or clearing it to no one in particular to kill a transition.
So maybe he's getting better, from from a baseline that's well below replacement. I feel like they could cycle him and Pomme de Terre in and out of each other's uniform and no would be the wiser (maybe not even them), though I guess one would hit more and one would do that standing around in the corner looking back and forth along the boards while waiting for a clue thing more. Wouldn't work with Dahlers cause he's a bit taller.
But yes, he gets on and off the ice without falling over, and he's not delivering pizzas with every movement of his stick, and he's adding "physicality," although it isn't obvious how helpful that is, exactly, when every 5th post in a GDT/PGT complains that we're being headhunted and injured and out crease-cleared and out-gritted by every team who isn't us. And he's allowing Niku to benefit hugely from ""touching the puck" or "doing ever so well" or whatever the hell he's supposed to be learning as he sleepwalks through the AHL for another X number of games.
So that's all good I guess.
Laine looked so surprised, then kind of embarrassed when he went to the bench for the high fives.
