People can talk all they want about Johnson's regular season but he wasn't so stellar in the playoffs. Some people put more emphasis on that than the regular season. And since half the teams in the NHL make the playoffs, its not completely unreasonable to do so. In the playoffs, Barrie seemed more comfortable with the speed of the game than Johnson. Too bad guys like Matt cooke are allowed to be in the league.
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People can talk all they want about Johnson's regular season but he wasn't so stellar in the playoffs. Some people put more emphasis on that than the regular season. And since half the teams in the NHL make the playoffs, its not completely unreasonable to do so. In the playoffs, Barrie seemed more comfortable with the speed of the game than Johnson. Too bad guys like Matt cooke are allowed to be in the league.
Gigantor The Goalie
Speak for the Goalies
EJ's play had nothing to do with having to cover Hejda every second of every game.
It's not like Barrie was playing next to Brent Seabrook, though, either. The Avs have two good defensemen. There's a huge drop off after those two.
- Dec 2, 2007
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EJ can't be expected to shutdown an opposing team by himself in the playoffs, he's 1/2 of a pairing and Hejda was letting him down big time with that injury. After Barrie went down he also became the de facto offensive dman too.
Despite being tasked with a seemingly impossible task, he played very well. Hell, he even scored that goal that gave us a 4-3 lead to nearly win the series until the Avs decided to sit back at the end. Had we won that game, the tune of his series would be far different.
I'm not even sure why you bothered to respond if this is it. Johnson's struggles stemmed mainly from making poor decisions. He has a couple of excuses for that, which are valid. He might have been trying too hard, as he had experienced a lot of losing prior to last year. Being in the playoffs might have made him alter his game somewhat. Also, there might have been mental and physical strain from being in the defensive zone so much (partly because Hejda was hot garbage). But it has nothing to do with people expecting him to shut down teams in spite of Hejda. No one reasonably expected this so its a point constructed on a false premise. And even beyond that, it's a completely vapid thing to say. It doesn't address anything; and it was completely wrong.
The reason Colorado was even because of the LSM line (and mostly MacKinnon). OReilly stepped up in spite of not having a lot of help. The Avs had an 18 year old whose play in three playoff games was so stellar that it was more responsible than anyone else for those three wins. It wasn't so great in the other games but if an 18 year old, but more generically, the LSM line gives you three wins, someone else should be able to step up for one more. But it never happened. Not even after Duchene came back. Losing Barrie hurt the Avs more than getting Duchene back helped.
EJ played decent, but his play in the regular season was better compared to his play in the playoffs.
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No doubt. I just think the crowd that thinks his playoffs were disappointing have a slightly mixed viewpoint on the subject. Disappointing relative to the regular season? Sure. But still pretty strong overall and indicative of a #1 defender struggling to anchor a blue line where the next best player on it was Nick Holden.
Freudian
Clearly deranged
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EJ and (especially) Hejda had some bad games in the playoffs but also some good. EJ completely shut down Parise in games 1-2 and played well.
Avs major problem was the forward depth being depleted and Barrie missing more than EJ playing bad. Avs aren't good enough to win with Cliche as the third line center and the bottom six populated by Carey, Hishon (NHL debut in the playoffs yay!), Bordeleau and Malone.
I'll take a full seasons worth of games as a better indicator of EJs ability than that short playoff run.
Avs major problem was the forward depth being depleted and Barrie missing more than EJ playing bad. Avs aren't good enough to win with Cliche as the third line center and the bottom six populated by Carey, Hishon (NHL debut in the playoffs yay!), Bordeleau and Malone.
I'll take a full seasons worth of games as a better indicator of EJs ability than that short playoff run.
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