Sooooo how about Evan Bouchard's defense last night

[ICanMotteBelieveIt]

Controller disconnect

Who needs opponents with defensemen like this

 

[Auston Marlander]

I'm a huge fan. Huge. He was dog shit last night lol. Don't forget blasting the Slapshot wide from unbelievably close range. And he was the culprit on OT goal too.

Having said that. His body of work is much better than 2 hillariousky bad periods. And Stu is allowed to make a save on one of those at the least.

https://x.com/i/web/status/1857996136352453104

Hard to have a good on ice save % when you let players walk in on your goalie constantly.

I rarely blame forwards for a bad OIS%, but dmen have a more direct impact on it.

 

[Macheteops]

His defense has improved a great deal, and coupled with his obvious offensive gifts, he's a special player.

And then you see plays like these, and he's also a special player.

That second TOR goal is a perfect example. It's frustrating as a fan. He had zero pressure and likely an easy out but that's who he is as a player. He creates offence but sometimes it's for the other team

The third Toronto goal he should have been benched after but KK doesn't have the balls it seems. No excuse for that lack of effort

And then he pulls that cheeky dangle on the blue line with 3-4 seconds left. I feel like after being the primary culprit on the last two goals maybe play it safe Bouch

 

[JianYang]

Bouchard is a high event player at both ends of the ice. That's not uncommon for some offensive dmen but he does not possess the skating attributes to hypnotize the viewers and look past the defensive gaffs.

If he tests the open market though, I assure you that someone out there is going to offer him 10 or more. These posts of locking him at 7 are a pipe dream unless he choses to leave a ton of money on the table.

 

[kevsh]

I'm just not sure what he was trying to do on the first one? It looked to me like the "pass" was about waist-high right at his own player, like he thought they were playing tag and yelling "you're it!" when he hit him.

 

[WaitingForThatCab]

You can reject it all you want but if he gets traded he'll be on first pair there too. He has been first pair his entire career. For the Knights when he won Dman of the year for the OHL. For the AHL team. For Team Canada at the Jr's. For the SEL team during lockout. And now on the AHL team. That's why he was a first rounder.

He has over 100 points in his last 100 games and is over .ppg in playoffs. He's a RHD that hovers at 1 .ppg. His hilariously bad gaffes are funny but they happen far less than people think.

So I'm happy to agree to disagree.

It is premature to say that he hovers at 1ppg. He certainly isn't close to that over his career, and in fact he only hit that in one season. Through about 14th of the 2024-25 season, he is back down to about 0.55pg. Obviously there is a lot of season left, but I'm not rolling out the CAREER 1PPG PLAYER carpet for him just yet.