RedHawkDown
still trying to trust the yzerplan
This isn’t true. 4th line and 3rd pairs are just shittier players. If you took Raymond and tasked him with purely shutdown duties without scoring, he would be way better at it than everybody in our bottom 6.Lidstrom wasn't a consistent Norris winner because he was great at defense. He won Norris' because he was great at defense while putting up 70pts a year
4th lines and 3rd pairs are full no offense, elite defensive players. It's extremely hard to find a player elite at both, but was easier to find one elite at defense. Maatta has been by far the Wings best pure "defender" since he's been here. But it doesn't matter because he isn't capable of generating offense at a reasonable rate to justify higher deployment
Defense is more systems based than offense, so it’s easier to learn, but it isn’t easy. Good players are usually just better at everything in hockey than bad players; a lot of them just focus on offense because that’s where their creativity shines and because nobody else on the team can do it.
Most 4th liners and 3rd pairings are also shit defensively in addition to being shit offensively. That’s why they mostly play against other 3rd pairings and 4th lines instead of playing against top lines.
Elite defenders who put up minimal offense don’t play on third pairings. Maatta is not an example of that. He doesn’t play higher because he is just a mid player in general, not because he doesn’t generate offense. If he was elite defensively he’d be playing top pair. Examples of that are guys like Slavin, MA Vlasic, Alex Vlasic, Carlo, Faber, etc all of whom are 1st pairing dmen or play at that level on their teams.