Eye of Ra
Grandmaster General of the International boards
What are you guys memories of him? What did he bring to the ice?
Got scared from that Tribute tag and thought he died or something
Awesome player though, great offensively and then rock-solid defence when he aged out of the offence
Nice partner for Byfuglien
Might be my favorite 2.0 defenseman of all time.
The fact that he did what he did with pre-transformation Buff is really impressive.Enstrom is a guy who taught me that evaluating defensemen is really difficult. If you look at the big events that happen around him, you'll see good passing, boxing out players along the boards, but also occasionally getting out-muscled and beat along the boards and in front of the net.
If you look at his stats and results though, it's clear that he was absolutely top-of-class 100% elite defensively. IMO that came from hockey IQ, awareness and positioning... his ability to always be predicting and countering what opponents were trying to do meant that there were just less opportunity for opponents with him on the ice. This impact is essentially invisible though (unless you're focusing on him in person and way better at evaluating D than I am heh).
In 2018 the guy carried Buff to best-in-league xga stats. Imagine having the top defensive pairing in the league, AND it has Dustin Byfuglien on it for offense; to me these two formed an absolutely insane pairing that was probably wildly underrated by most of us while it was here, certainly by me.
He's a reminder that 80% of the things you do on a shift are away from the puck. (and invisible to the casual viewer)Enstrom is a guy who taught me that evaluating defensemen is really difficult. If you look at the big events that happen around him, you'll see good passing, boxing out players along the boards, but also occasionally getting out-muscled and beat along the boards and in front of the net.
If you look at his stats and results though, it's clear that he was absolutely top-of-class 100% elite defensively. IMO that came from hockey IQ, awareness and positioning... his ability to always be predicting and countering what opponents were trying to do meant that there were just less opportunity for opponents with him on the ice. This impact is essentially invisible though (unless you're focusing on him in person and way better at evaluating D than I am heh).
In 2018 the guy carried Buff to best-in-league xga stats. Imagine having the top defensive pairing in the league, AND it has Dustin Byfuglien on it for offense; to me these two formed an absolutely insane pairing that was probably wildly underrated by most of us while it was here, certainly by me.
For Joe Morrow! Ouch.I recall that Maurice healthy scratched him from what would have been his last Jets game and last NHL game. What a way to end your time with your NHL club.
He was pretty small by NHL defenseman standards. It allowed him to get at and disrupt possession from players much larger than himself using his brain and his stick instead of trying to out-muscle opponents. He was a cerebral player and excellent at his craft. I played a men's league game many moons ago and broke my normal stick. It was the one game I didn't bring a spare so I borrowed one from another, much taller player. While my stickhandling went to sh!t I was able to reach around bigger guys quite easily to disrupt their play with the much longer stick.Why did he use such a long stick?
I'm becoming convinced that most hockey fans don't even know what they're watching.For Joe Morrow! Ouch.
Enstrom was underrated by a lot of fans.
I guess I'm in the minority here cause I was not a fan . He was a mosquito on an elephants ass when trying to win puck battles . That's the reason for the long stick although he did use it fairly well .
Yeah unfortunately I think there's some recency bias with Toby.There are others that felt the same. He was just hammered in that Vegas series. In fairness to Toby that was the end of his playing days.
At times I felt his awkwardly long stick affected puck retrievals when being pressed heavy on the forecheck.
I grew to appreciated his game and what he brought to the team. Even bought an Enstrom game worn playoff jersey.