I am very hesitant to start asking for the young defenders to step in. Time and time again with this franchise, we have thought that we had a young player that was going to become a top-pairing dman. Lots of people thought it with Klefbom (most I would argue), some thought it about Nurse, and some (although less, due to how he arrived in Edmonton) thought it about Larsson. All of these thoughts were wrong, and none of these players are really good top-pairing players. They are all essentially 2nd pairing guys being forced to play top-pairing roles. I think the same thing is happening with Bear right now. He has looked good for a rookie, and already people are saying he can be a top-pairing player. Not a chance.
We keep putting dmen in roles that are above their playing ability because we don't have that #1/2 guy that forces everybody else down the roster 1 peg. Bouchard doesn't look like that player at all, as he will likely be a 2nd/3rd pairing PP-specialist guy. Broberg is ridiculously young and only started playing defense as a teenager a few years ago. His "defensive IQ" likely has miles and miles to go, and may never get there. Yes, he is a ridiculous skater (I just watched some video again of him while making this post, and he really is just a bonkers skater, wow) and he has really good size at 6'4" and about 210#, but I'll take a slower, small dman who knows his positioning well over a guy with all the physical tools (see Nurse as a primary example of this).
We have to let Bear, Bouchard and Broberg (the 3 Bs, lol) slowly mature if we want to home-grow our own potential top-pairing guy.
Personally, I think this will take too long and will be wasting too many years of the 29/97 contract. I would be looking to trade one of the 3 Bs + something else (maybe our first rounder) for some immediate help on defence if I was the GM. 29 and 97 are too great of talents to waste while we wait for our defensive prospects to mature. I wonder if a guy like Broberg, who is generating a lot of hype and is young enough that he hasn't "disproved himself" at the NHL level yet, plus the 1st rounder this year in a relatively deep draft would be enough to get a #2 defender from some team?