That's a very weird rationale. Edler averaged 0.65 PPG as a 24 year old! He averaged 0.60 as a 25 year old when the Canucks were in their prime before the wheels fell off. His numbers are depressed by the general suck that is the Vancouver franchise over the past couple seasons.
His numbers were inflated by playing with the Sedin twins, who were for some time offensively unstoppable in a way that Datsyuk and Zetterberg never have been. Whatever the case, he's not able to generate offense on his own. That sets him apart. Kronwall has managed to do quite well on a team that often lacks offense; Edler cannot do the same.
Schneider had a gawd awful plus minus in 1995-96. How is that any different from Edler on this Canucks team Torts is running into the ground?
Schneider garnered a -18 on one of the worst teams in the league. That Islanders squad went 22-50-10, a record whose pure awfulness even this season's abysmal Sabres are unlikely to match. The Canucks are currently 27-24-9, have only one less point than the Red Wings and only a slightly lower goal differential, and are still in the playoff hunt in an ultra-competitive conference. The two are, in short, incomparable; despite this, Edler is on pace for a -35 season total, nearly twice as bad as Schneider's worst. Also of note is that Schneider managed to put up 47 points on that horrific team. Edler is on pace for 23.
I'll note once again that a -23 is atrocious no matter who you are. It's a number that suggests serious problems for any player, and it gives absolute lie to the notion that Edler is a legitimate top-pairing defenseman. More, none of Vancouver's other top-four D-men is even close; two (Hamhuis and Bieksa) are positive in that category, and Garrison is only a -4; this suggests that the problem is more Edler and less the team that he plays on. Edler is currently 4th-worst in the league in +/-, and the only players worse than him in this regard play for the Sabres or the Oilers, teams incomparably worse than the Canucks.
Rafalski didn't make it to the NHL until he was 26 and played on a very good New Jersey team so his number were never depressed the way Edler's have been.
The Devils teams upon which Rafalski played were all good, yes. That said, the Devils of that age played a thoroughly defense-focused system, and point totals amongst the players tended to be fairly low. Rafalski nonetheless put up very good numbers, and was the Devils' top-scoring defenseman in five of his seven seasons with the team; in four of those, he outscored Scott Niedermayer, his hall-of-fame teammate. He accomplished this whilst playing ably in his own end.
More, see above: Vancouver is currently an average team, not a horrible one.
Do you honestly think either Schneider or Rafalski are defensive defensemen? They had very long careers due to their contributions on offense.
Both were excellent at offense and fairly good at defense. Edler is neither of those.
Edler's a guy just entering his prime who you could probably get for a good price given the tire fire the Canucks have become.
Gillis is not known for pulling off blockbusters, and
is known for being obstinate to the point of futility; this is why he failed to move Luongo, and why he failed to move Edler this past summer. He asks for far too much. More, the Red Wings undoubtedly do not need another leftie defenseman who cannot play defense.
Holland fielded and rejected a fairly absurd offer from Gillis over the summer.
He would be a consistent 50+ point producer in Detroit.
That's utter and arbitrary conjecture.
Defensive defensemen are a dime a dozen, it's the offensive defensemen who are difficult if not impossible to acquire.
Solid defensive defensemen are most certainly
not a dime per dozen, else the Red Wings would have more than one of them.
