I thought Glass played his best hockey in the playoffs last year. He had 82 games or whatever to practice his wheels at the bare minimum, so his strides and skating looked much better.
However, that does not change the fact that Glass was not an ideal candidate on the 4th line against teams like TBL or MTL.
There were over 300 fights last year. Fighting is *NEVER* going away, it is embedded in the culture of the sport. There is still a need for fighting because it is still a pendulum swinging momentum. However, how a team traditionally utilizes fighting was by having a brute or two on a team. Now, you need to have some pretty wicked skill and be able to drop the mitts when the time is appropriate.
The only time we benefit from Glass is when he did drop the gloves after someone ran one of us, and he took the 5 Minute Major, as opposed to a Top 6 player we have, say, Kreider, wasting in the penalty box.
25 fights in 2 weeks of play into the season, players are always going to drop the mitts.