Elite defenceman theory

[CANUCKLELION]

No offense, but even if that's true so what? Where did you have the other guys? Why don't you go on record? Were you saying Schenn at #5 was a good choice?

Imagine if Gillis had taken Myers. After the WJC and all the accolades Hodgson had in 2008-09, people would have been running him out of town. Even with Myers' emergence, if Coho ends up playing up to his potential, it would have been years of Kopitarzzz!!! all over again.

[mooremooremoore]

Hamhus/Mitchell signed to a three year deal

S. Neidermayer to a one year deal

Sign O'brien and trade Bieksa for a draft pick, O'brien would be substantially cheaper.

Neidermayer Hamhuis/Mitchell

Edler Ehrhoff

Salo O'brien

* Neidermayer is a pipe dream though, every year he is a UFA and we all drool over him yet he keeps going back to the Ducks. This year may be different as his brother is now in NJ and he won the Gold in Vancouver. I doubt it though.

[mooremooremoore]

Its all cool Buds,

personally I had Myers in the top ten, solely because of his ability to play combined with his humongous size. this wole new NHL is all about taking space away from the offence. Size is the #1 quality that enables a defender to get the best of an offensive threat. Cheers.

[mooremooremoore]

If the Nucks had 1 Elite Dman wouldnt have changed the result against the Hawks.They have the better and deeper team in offense and defense.

I would go for Seidenberg.I watched many games he played for the Bruins, he was often their best Dman. (better then Chara)

[MikeGillis58]

Scott Niedermayer in a Canucks uniform would be a dream come true. I think the Canucks should also get Dan Hamhuis. Let Willie Mitchell walk and trade Kevin Bieksa for draft picks.

Scott Niedermayer - Dan Hamhuis

Christian Ehrhoff - Sami Salo

Alex Edler - Shane O'Brien

[The Drunken Crunker]

Agreed.. Big, mobile defenseman are just that much more likely to become elite. I didn't have Myers in my top 10 though.

[mooremooremoore]

I disagree. We only scored 1 goal in the most important game of the year. One goal. And our offense totally disappeared in the 2nd and 3rd period. This is unacceptable for any serious cup contender. As much as we need defense improvement we must also improve our offense.

And that is why we should focus on what we need instead of trying to overachieve. Sign some solid defensive dmen for $2-$3 mill, and don't expect them to score 60 points. At the same time use the cap space we "saved" this way to sign some skillful forwards as needed to boost our offense. This way we GUARANTEE that our defense will be better and our offense will be better.

Reading this forum I have seen many guys angry over expensive signings. Angry over signing Kesler. Angry over signing Sedin. Angry over signing Luongo. Some even angry over signing Sundin for 1 year as a rental. I do not agree of course but many fans are angry when a signing "seems"to be a mistake.

Now suddenly it seems everyone wants to burn $6 million of our valuable salary cap on some "elite" dman that might not perform. Suddenly everyone seems so sure that this "elite" dman will do the job for us.

You guys can downplay Bouwmeester all you want now but last year so MANY of us were angry b/c we didn't get him. No one here, not even me, would call Bouwmeester a non-elite dman last summer. Of course now the situation of Bouwmeester is clear but last summer no one knew, and that is why "elite" dman is risky. If we sign a $6 mill "elite" dman this year we will be facing the same risks.

To break things down, if we sign Kovalchuk for $7 million (not saying we should) he probably will get at least 60-70 points for us, on top of our offensive power this year. Can you honestly perdict Kovalchuk will score less than 40 points if we sign him? No way. Can't say the same for Bouwmeester who gets $6.7 million.

Come on guys think logically.

[D-Money]

Its all cool Buds,

personally I had Myers in the top ten, solely because of his ability to play combined with his humongous size. this wole new NHL is all about taking space away from the offence. Size is the #1 quality that enables a defender to get the best of an offensive threat. Cheers.

[CHIPS]

I can assure you that I was not one of those people that was angry that we didn't get Bouwmeester. I wasn't sold on him last year and I'm certainly not sold on him now. I'm starting to wonder if you understand how hockey works. Just because they're called "defense"man doesn't mean they don't factor into the offense. The defense has to cause the other team to turn over the puck so that we can turn onto offense. The defense has to make a good first pass in order to make it out of our zone. They also have to shutdown the opposing team so that they can't score. You can look at that last game in 2 ways. One of them is right. The Canucks couldn't score because we didn't have enough offensive depth. Our forwards were just not good enough. Or. The Blackhawks, with they're strong defense, shutdown the Canucks forwards. I mean clearly we didn't have enough scoring depth on our team. We were only the 2nd highest scoring team in the league this year. Think logically? I am, thanks. 39 of the last 40 teams to win the cup had at least one Norris calibre, elite defenseman. Is that Logical enough for you? Nah thats not a good enough stat. I mean what about that 06 Hurricane team. Lets be like them. I think I'll go with the other 97.5% of teams that won the cup. I mean I like an underdog, but 97.5% is a pretty overwhelming number.

BTW maybe this elite defenseman won't perform. But maybe every other player in the league won't perform either. Give your head a shake.

[Buttock]

We do already have two elite forwards you know.

This Bouwmeester stuff is pretty funny. Offensive defensemen often go as their team goes. When the Flames are better, J-bo will put up more points, but that only matters to people who have him in a hockey pool. I think it's silly to base your opinion of any player on one season. Jbo is an elite, legit #1 defenseman.

[Sergei Shirokov]

Seems like the No.1 d-men on most teams are untouchable. (Lidstrom, Doughty, Weber, Keith, etc)

Chi had to pay a 49 million dollar contract to get reminents of a No.1 d-men. Same with NYR.

Cal had to give up a 3rd just to negioate with Jay Mouwmeester.

Ottawa's never been the same w/o Redden/Chara.

If I were GM,

I'd some how throw a package of: (Bieksa, Raymond, Hansen, Bernier, Schnieder, Grabner, Shirokov, 1st 2010)... Not all of them, but alot of them to get a top 5 pick this year and draft a d-men. Even then, it'd be unlikely w/o Hodgson or Schroeder being thrown into the package.

[Charles Manson]

Ehrhoff is elite or at least pretty damn close!

[DGFX.]

Schneider bernier bieksa 1st for top 10 pick. No way we let ray ray and grabby walk that easily.

[mooremooremoore]

Ehrhoff is elite or at least pretty damn close!

[mooremooremoore]

Bouwmeester wasn't the only one. For example look at Pavel Kubina stats before Kovalchuk trade and after. Kubina was having one of the best season of his life, and suddenly after Kovalchuk got traded Kubina's points disappeared. Why?

Let's look at those Stanley Cup champs again. Yes they have 1 or 2 elite dmen. But didn't they also have many elite scoring forwards who scored for them in key moments? Yes in one direction you can argue that those elite dmen made them win. However I can just as easily argue that those elite forwards made them win.

I know what you are saying and you do have some good points. However I still keep my current opinion. Elite Forward > elite dman. Only when we have gotten absolutely ALL the elite forwards we need should we consider elite dman.

[CHIPS]

You are correct. Those cup winning teams had terrific forwards. They also had goalies that were playing well. And they also had a strong defense, the strongest being "elite" or "Norris" calibre. Now lets look at the Canucks from this past season. 2nd in the League in scoring. 6 players with 25 goals or more. Strong(although not perfect) goaltending. A strong top 9. Good defensive depth. What were we missing. An "elite" defenseman. You can argue this Elite forwards vs. defenseman thing all you want, but you won't win. Why? Because I have fact behind my theory.

Fact: 92.1% of the last 38 cup winners had at least 1 "elite" defenseman on there team.

Fact: The Vancouver Canucks have never had a defenseman nominated for the Norris.

Fact: The Vancouver Canucks have never won the Stanley cup.

Fact: The New Jersey Devils aquired Ilya Kovalchuk this year and lost in the first round.

Fact: The Philadelphia Flyers beat NJ in the first round this year. Chris Pronger is on their team.

Yes, you can just as easily argue that Elite forwards made them win, but its hard to argue with numbers.

Ps. Why didn't our elite forwards(Daniel, Hank) make our defenseman have terrific numbers this year? I mean Hank had 112 points, but our best defenseman only had 44 points. I mean if Elite defenseman get their high numbers directly from playing with Elite forwards then how come it didn't work in our situation?

[wallstreetamigo]

The Flames thought the same thing you did last summer. They got Bouwmeester. They got Phaneuf. By your logic how can they not win the Stanley Cup? Well simple their forwards sucked so they can't score. Their team and fans got so feed up with the defense they traded away Phaneuf to save salary cap. At the end of the day they didn't even make the playoffs.

Look at the Islanders. They had Mark Streit, and you can't get much more elite than him. Did they made the playoff? Not even close. Look at the Ducks. They had Niedermayer which "everyone" here seems to love but his team was nowhere in the playoff race. There are many other examples of teams with elite dmen that didn't even make the playoff this year.

These are fact. I did read you facts. But please take a look at my facts too. See things from both sides.

Ask the Flames management and Flames fans today. What do you think will be their opinion on "elite" dmen? "Elite dmen are crap we should have signed an elite forward instead!!!"

So you see. Most fans' opinions are based solely on how well their team did. Flames had elite dmen but their team sucked so they will blame elite dmen for wasting their cap. Canucks had a bad playoff against the Hawks and so they blame the lack of elite dmen. So which opinion is correct? Neither. These are all emotional responses. "Oh our team is not working so whatever strength we have is useless and whatever weaknesss we have must be improved!!!"

Instead a logical solution to the problem is to further improve a team's strength and reduce the weakness. For example the Canucks is a high scoring team with pretty bad defense. In this case further improve the offense, and then improve the defense. Don't just say let's give up our offense for defense. If we do this we will end up with a medicore team that cannot attack and cannot defend. We need to focus on one thing, do it well, before worrying about another. Don't make a focus-less mediocre team.

[KoreanCanuck00]

The Flames thought the same thing you did last summer. They got Bouwmeester. They got Phaneuf. Elite dmen all the way. Those 2 guys already cost them $14 million in salary. By your logic how can they not win the Stanley Cup? Well simple their forwards sucked so they can't score. Their team and fans got so feed up with the defense they traded away Phaneuf to save salary cap. At the end of the day they didn't even make the playoffs.

Look at the Islanders. They had Mark Streit, and you can't get much more elite than him. Did they made the playoff? Not even close. Look at the Ducks. They had Niedermayer which "everyone" here seems to love but his team was nowhere in the playoff race. There are many other examples of teams with elite dmen that didn't even make the playoff this year.

These are fact. I did read you facts. But please take a look at my facts too. See things from both sides.

Ask the Flames management and Flames fans today. What do you think will be their opinion on "elite" dmen? "Elite dmen are crap we should have signed an elite forward instead!!!"

So you see. Most fans' opinions are based solely on how well their team did. Flames had elite dmen but their team sucked so they will blame elite dmen for wasting their cap. Canucks had a bad playoff against the Hawks and so they blame the lack of elite dmen. So which opinion is correct? Neither. These are all emotional responses. "Oh our team is not working so whatever strength we have is useless and whatever weaknesss we have must be improved!!!"

Instead a logical solution to the problem is to further improve a team's strength and reduce the weakness. For example the Canucks is a high scoring team with pretty bad defense. In this case further improve the offense, and then improve the defense. Don't just say let's give up our offense for defense. If we do this we will end up with a medicore team that cannot attack and cannot defend. We need to focus on one thing, do it well, before worrying about another. Don't make a focus-less mediocre team.

And for the reward I say we sign any $3 million dmen we need to boost our defense. I just believe we should save some salary cap for another superstar forward to further boost our offense. That "elite" dmen for $7 million that everyone is talking about is not needed.

[Buttock]

I don't think you need one elite defenseman, per se. Those guys bring a lot to the table but I think it's okay if you have a bunch of guys bringing the same things to the table. Our defense is good at a lot but the blackhawks exposed the weaknesses of the group. Here are some elements our defense lacked:

-Somebody who can shut down the other team's top lines and be a dominating defensive presence and go-to PK guy

-Somebody to keep the likes of Byfuglien out of Luongo's face, especially on the PK

-Bonafide pp qb

-edited to add, situational awareness! We were giving up odd-man rushes and breakaways on Lu in tie games, that's freaking ridiculous.

We need to add these elements to our defense, preferably without compromising the group's strengths (which include mobility, puck-moving ability and getting shots on net). Our defense was #1 in goals scored in the regular season without an "elite" defenseman or pp qb but we do need at least one top pairing d-man and maybe two.

[Kaka1]

Having two elite denfencemen ($6 million range) in front of Luongo would be better than having a bunch of 3-3.5 million dollar plugs like the Canucks have right now. Those two elite defencemen would do a lot better job of clearing rebounds in front of the net which if you haven't noticed are how most goals are scored on Luongo. Loungo makes the first save, there's a big scramble in front of the net, and our 3.5 Million dollar douchebags fail to clear the puck and it's in the back of the net. The Ducks won the cup with Niedermayer+Pronger, Detroit with Lidstrom+ Rafalski, and Keith+Seabrook are elite D's just not being paid top dollar yet.