Tanev or Zub: who would you take?

[Kshahdoo]

Two good/great defensive defensemen. One has way longer history of being good, the other is almost 6 years younger. So what would be your choice?

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[NyQuil]

6 years is like 1/2 to a 1/3 of a productive career.

 

[Tufted Titmouse]

Tanev for the Leafs, Zub if my team was younger.

 

[Mickey Marner]

I’ve seen enough of these defensive defensemen (Stralman, Vlasic, Hjalmarsson) go into a steep decline around Tanev’s age. Maybe he defies age and is productive until 40, but I’ll let someone else take that risk. Zub will be a free agent at 27 and could reasonably be signed to a 5 year deal that you wouldn’t regret.

 

[biturbo19]

I’ve seen enough of these defensive defensemen (Stralman, Vlasic, Hjalmarsson) go into a steep decline around Tanev’s age. Maybe he defies age and is productive until 40, but I’ll let someone else take that risk. Zub will be a free agent at 27 and could reasonably be signed to a 5 year deal that you wouldn’t regret.

Everyone's always waiting for Tanev to go into steep decline, and it's somewhat fair. A lot of defensive-oriented guys do fall off a cliff around that age. Especially guys like Tanev whose bodies take an absolute beating. Facing down heavy forechecks, pasted to the boards regularly, battling around the high traffic areas, blocking a ton of shots. That tends to really add up.

But Tanev is such a smart player, he continues to sort of defy the expectations of decline. His game is so cerebral, the physical decline doesn't seem to be affecting him much. That's never what his game has been about.



But yeah...the huge age discrepancy kinda swings this unfairly toward the other guy. If you said say..."the next 3 years" or something, it becomes a much more challenging question. Tanev is significantly better than Zub right now (who is likely already at his peak). It's not outlandish to think Tanev's got 2-3 more great years in him, and maybe a few lesser years after that. I'd take him over the next 3 years. But if we're realistically talking more like...6 years+ of Zub, it's tough to outweigh that longevity.

Even still though...3 Years of Tanev vs 6 Years of Zub...there's enough of a gap there imo, that i'd think about it. Especially for the Canucks situation, knowing that Tanev works well with Hughes, and being familiar enough with him to think he'd be a terrific partner for OEL as well. Zub is a bit more of an "unknown entity". He's been good with Ottawa, but it's a small sample with a single team/situation. Not really worried about him elsewhere, but it's a small consideration.

 

[King Karl]

Zub, but chiefly because of the age factor.