You tried Defending him by using the fact that he faces the best Q of C.....but he is poor against them. The blogger is bang on....if you are going to use the QOC to defend him, then his result while playing against those and other players is very valid.
I wouldn't say he's poor defending them. If that was the case, Grabovski would've been a beast last-year. Instead, Dion doesn't seem to drive much shots, but he's pretty damn effective producing points and at limiting his GA. You can say, he rivals with the top defenceman in that regard, and we can see that in the games.
Top liners - especially Crosby - tend to hate him.
I hold him accountable for his play and his lack of leadership.....that is on him, not on his teammates.
You don't see like him probably more on the "leadership" side. I actually don't see him as the vocal side. However, his play for most of the season has been fantastic.
[QUITE]His influence on the play when on the ice is very noticeable....he does not separate man from puck, [/QUOTE] He does separate the man from the puck. To take cases where he doesn't isn't going to be productive. In terms of one-on-one ability, he's excellent. Take the best players and he's noticeable in terms of effectiveness. It's interesting to note that it was Gunnarsson who often finds trouble covering his man and this was noticeable against Boston.
he can not play against the cycle because he is a poor transitional skater.
He needs to be
He does not box out our opponents when the puck goes to the point....he adds to the screening of our goalie.
I think that is more a part of Carlyle's strategy than anything. He doesn't seem to like individual battles in the neutral zone and prefers that everyone collapses in order to force low % shots. It is true that Dion does like to park himself in front of the net like a stay-at-home and that's how he played in Calgary as well.
He ices the puck more then any other D man on the team. He is second to lots of pucks he could be first to, and tracks the puck worse then any D man on the team.....other then that he has been good defensively!
He's being expected to be the puck mover AND is the stay-at-home guy. That is obviously not going to pan out well for the top pairing. What's hilarious is that everyone on either side will admit that Dion will park himself in front of the net. That is, being a stay-at-home defenceman while Gunnarsson is supposed to move the puck. Ironically, Gunnarsson doesn't do either despite being a solid mid-pairing guy. I think if we had someone like Gardiner who can move the puck extremely effectively ( while being solid defensively), we'd have a much better top pairing. Dion needs someone that can move the puck well ( i.e. Aucoin) rather than a stay-at-home like Regehr.
I am not saying it's ideal, but we're not getting anyone better than Dion for a while. It is true that Duncan Keith could play a similar role ( doesn't this year) and would look better due to his excellent transitional skating, but that doesn't really matter. We're not getting him and are better off waiting for Gardiner/ Rielly to develop into something like that.
He just makes excuses. He said, that he didn't want emotions to get the best of him.... lol.... so, he's not mature or collected enough to keep them in check? What a baby. What did he think he was going to do, tell reporters to go F* themselves? Maybe, it would have shown he gave a ****. He's totally unsuitable for captain.
