Bardof425*
Guest
What game were you watching, honestly?
Strålman was quite obviously the best Ranger defenceman on the breakout and in transition. He had two bad mistakes and a few misplays, but that's his game. He is effective because he is calm with the puck and takes risks, sometimes it backfires. But the good significantly outweighs the bad.
We dominated 5v5 and that was a fantastic sight. But we only dominated when Staal-Strålman were on the ice. When the other two pairings were on the game was pretty evenly matched. And they dominated despite getting 50/50 zone starts. Our top line posted similar possession numbers, but they had an 80-20 offensive zone start bias.
Look. Strålman's game isn't very obvious, but it sure as hell is effective. He will lead our defencemen in +/- at season's end by a mile.
First off he will not lead in +-. secondly, the caps are a top heavy team and Stralman barely faced Backstrom and Ovi and he still had to take two minors after getting beat one on one. Imagine if he had to defend the great 8 all night. He's a nice player who had a bad night. Please remove head from sand and spare me the advanced stats that ignore the reality of the game.