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Zigmund.Palffy

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Bieksa was the best player on ice tonight. He had 30 min of ice time. That's half of the game on the second night of a back to back. He shut down Ovie completely and made lots of nice plays. I was actually quite mad that they didn't pick him as one of the stars. He was a stud out there tonight.

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a. If the Canucks could get a great prospect and a couple of picks, I might consider taking the chance (Barring any further injuries). If the choice to fit Salo in is: Waive Insert defenseman here, or get a considerable return for an upcoming UFA, I'd choice the latter.

b. His lacerations were in 07 and 09. The season in between that (08), you can't put the blame on injuries. He had a career year in points, but was the worst on the team as far as most defensive statistics were concerned. Other players are stepping up for points (Edler and Ehrhoff especially), the Canucks need guys who will consistently shut down other teams best players and be in the positive. Considering Bieksa is a career minus player, despite putting up close to 150 points, I don't think he qualifies.

Great post. ^^^

----------------------------------------------------------------------------

BXa still gives the puck away a lot and Hamhuis does the heavy lifting as a shut down guy when paired with Bieksa.

Hamhuis did a number on Ovechkin toningt, Kesler helped out a lot as well.

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a. If the Canucks could get a great prospect and a couple of picks, I might consider taking the chance (Barring any further injuries). If the choice to fit Salo in is: Waive Insert defenseman here, or get a considerable return for an upcoming UFA, I'd choice the latter.

b. His lacerations were in 07 and 09. The season in between that (08), you can't put the blame on injuries. He had a career year in points, but was the worst on the team as far as most defensive statistics were concerned. Other players are stepping up for points (Edler and Ehrhoff especially), the Canucks need guys who will consistently shut down other teams best players and be in the positive. Considering Bieksa is a career minus player, despite putting up close to 150 points, I don't think he qualifies.

a. The chance to win the Stanley Cup far outweight the risk of losing him for nothing in the off season. it's is a very acceptable chance to take. Also, the same can be said of Ehrhoff who is also a UFA, if you want to talk about trade value, I believe Ehrhoff is worth even more than Bieksa.

b. Bieksa wasn't fully recovered yet at the beginning of the 08-09 season, he was still playing hurt, in addition, he also hurt his knee and suffered a broken bone in his foot in separate incidents. All these injuries explained his lack of mobility which leads to his defensive mishaps. He was a career offensive minded offensive defensemen, playing defense is not his strong suit. A -4 rating is pretty respectable for his role as he scored 11 with 32 helpers. Don't forget, he is our top scoring defensemen in last year's playoff with 3 goals and 5 assists with a +2 rating.

Correction for you, as of right now Bieksa is a career plus 0 not counting playoffs, and if you count those games too he is a +4, he also leads the team at +19 right now and he is our #1 shutdown defensemen this year playing against all the top stars. His role on the team has changed this year and he is adapting to his new shutdown role perfectly.

With Ehrhoff and Edler taking up the offensive defensemen role, Bieksa is now the goto shutdown guy who is also a scoring threat, something Willie Mitchell never was, Bieksa also provide the grit factor than Willie didn't have. I think Bieksa this year more than filled the departed Mitchell's shoes/skates.

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Bieksa was the best player on ice tonight. He had 30 min of ice time. That's half of the game on the second night of a back to back. He shut down Ovie completely and made lots of nice plays. I was actually quite mad that they didn't pick him as one of the stars. He was a stud out there tonight.

Bieksa and Hansen were the bet playerz tonight

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Canadian:

Almost forgot, since you brought up the +- thingy and you seems like hell bend on replacing Bieksa with Salo, let me throw this out for you:

Bieksa is a career +4 in playoff games

Salo is a career -3 as a Canuck and -7 as a Senator for a total of -10

Even the mighty Ohlund carries a -5 in career playoff rating.

Who is the more dependable defensemen in crunch time, ie high pressure playoff games again?

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a. The chance to win the Stanley Cup far outweight the risk of losing him for nothing in the off season. it's is a very acceptable chance to take. Also, the same can be said of Ehrhoff who is also a UFA, if you want to talk about trade value, I believe Ehrhoff is worth even more than Bieksa.

b. Bieksa wasn't fully recovered yet at the beginning of the 08-09 season, he was still playing hurt, in addition, he also hurt his knee and suffered a broken bone in his foot in separate incidents. All these injuries explained his lack of mobility which leads to his defensive mishaps. He was a career offensive minded offensive defensemen, playing defense is not his strong suit. A -4 rating is pretty respectable for his role as he scored 11 with 32 helpers. Don't forget, he is our top scoring defensemen in last year's playoff with 3 goals and 5 assists with a +2 rating.

Correction for you, as of right now Bieksa is a career plus 0 not counting playoffs, and if you count those games too he is a +4, he also leads the team at +19 right now and he is our #1 shutdown defensemen this year playing against all the top stars. His role on the team has changed this year and he is adapting to his new shutdown role perfectly.

With Ehrhoff and Edler taking up the offensive defensemen role, Bieksa is now the goto shutdown guy who is also a scoring threat, something Willie Mitchell never was, Bieksa also provide the grit factor than Willie didn't have. I think Bieksa this year more than filled the departed Mitchell's shoes/skates.

a. The chances of re-signing Ehrhoff seem to be a lot higher than re-signing Bieksa.

Bieksa's going to want to test the market to see what he can get from other teams (I'm sure teams are a little uncertain- 1 year wonder or will this be a trend). With Ehrhoff, he's sure to have a number in mind, and it's a matter of compromising with the Canucks. And yes, if the Canucks KNEW that they were going to lose BOTH Ehrhoff and Bieksa at the end of the season, they would probably trade Ehrhoff. But they still hope they can re-sign him, I'm not sure that Bieksa is even on their radar. And as you said, Ehrhoff does have more value, which is precisely why the Canucks would keep him. I'm not suggesting selling all of the UFAs this year and foregoing a long playoff run. I am merely suggesting that given Bieksa's strong play THIS season, the fact that he is a UFA, and the fact that he is unlikely to re-sign in Vancouver, it would be beneficial in the long-term to trade him.

b. There's no way you can possibly blame his calf injury for his start to the 08 season. He missed most of the 07-08 season with the injury, but he came back and played the last 2 months of the season of 07-08. He then had the whole summer to continue "rehabbing" if you want to call it that. Then he had the Pre-season. That's a good 30-40 games, 50-80 practices and a lot more skating. I'm sorry, but I'm not buying that excuse. As for his knee injury and broken foot, yes, it might have hampered him for a short while at the start of the 08-09 season - both of those injuries occurred EARLY in the season (November) so let's say for the month of December, he wasn't up to par. But what accounts for his play from January until the end of the season?

And by the way, his defensive mishaps are a trend, healthy or not:

Giveaways:

2010 - leads the team with 28 (43 GP)

2009 - 5th on the team with 31 (55 GP) -in half the games as most

2008 - 5th on the team with 55 (72 GP)

2007 - 5th on the team with 30 (34 GP) -in half the games as most

2006 - 4th on the team with 49 (81 GP)

That's a whopping 193 Giveaways in 285 games.

His stats would be TERRIBLE if he wasn't always paired with the best shut-down defensemen (Mitchell and now Hamhuis).

And I'm definitely not happy with a defenseman who picks up 40+ points and is a minus player.

According to TSN and NHL.com he is still -1, unless it hasn't been updated since this last game. Either way, 140 pts. and a 0 rating is not very impressive, especially if you take away this year's +19, and again, the fact that he is always paired top-shutdown defensemen and still ends up a minus.

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Canadian:

Almost forgot, since you brought up the +- thingy and you seems like hell bend on replacing Bieksa with Salo, let me throw this out for you:

Bieksa is a career +4 in playoff games

Salo is a career -3 as a Canuck and -7 as a Senator for a total of -10

Even the mighty Ohlund carries a -5 in career playoff rating.

Who is the more dependable defensemen in crunch time, ie high pressure playoff games again?

In no way was I basing my decision solely off a relatively deceiving stat such as +-.

Let's look at the last two playoff seasons:

Bieksa:

09-10:

12 GP - 8 Points (1 on the PP) - 6 Giveaways +2

08-09:

10 GP - 5 Points (4 on the PP) - 0 Giveaways +3

Total:

22 GP - 13 Points (5 on the PP) - 6 Giveaways +5

Salo:

09-10:

12 GP - 6 Points (3 on the PP) - 5 Giveaways +2

08-09:

7 GP - 7 Points - (5 on the PP) - 1 Giveaway +0

Total

19 GP - 13 Points ( 8 on the PP) - 6 Giveaways +2

Almost identical in the playoffs. Debunked. And I'm not even going into the regular season stats in which Salo blows Bieksa out of the water.

Now here's our current scenario:

Salo is likely coming back.

If/When he does, he a. Needs a spot and b. Salary needs to move

Option 1. Waive Alberts/Rome/Whomever

or

Option 2. Trade Bieksa, Replace with Salo, who is consistently better than Bieksa and get a good package in return.

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I gotta go with Whoopsy on this one.

The likelihood of trading Bieksa is just becoming slimmer and slimmer as each game goes on. He's been named by both Hank and Kes as one of their best players on the ice night in and night out, and identified on most nights as the reason why opponent's top lines are shut down. Now, I'm not refuting that Hammer has a large part in their solid shut-down play, but to attribute all their successes as a pairing to Hammer is just (IMO) naive. Both Bieksa and Hamhuis have made their fair share of mistakes and both have done their due to back each other up. It's a two-way street - they're playing well because they both make each other better.

Again, you can't help but go back to the fact that this team is that much stronger WITH Bieksa than without. With the way things are playing out, you gotta believe that MG is trying to work out a scenario in whichboth Bieksa and Salo are in our starting lineup, and not just one. Why? You go back to his strong anchoring play, you go back to the fact that he is a RHS. People are hesitant to trade/waive Alberts because 'what if an injury happens'? Why would you trade Bieksa instead? That's even worse! Regardless of how well people believe Sami will play when he comes back, the matter of the fact is that he is coming back from a major injury, and is the most injury-prone guy on our blueline. The 'what-if' itself should be reason enough not to trade Bieksa at all.

The fans, the analysts, the players themselves believe that this is the year for something to happen. Would you yourself not take that gamble of losing Bieksa to the market if it meant a bigger chance of winning the Cup? I sure as hell would.

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I just fear that if the Canucks do keep him that he will either:

a. Be lost for nothing in the off-season, when it is obvious the Canucks could get a huge return right now

or

b. Sign long-term with the Canucks and return to his old self, and the bitching will continue for the length of his extension.

a: A team can't afford to trade away their top shut-down defenseman when they have a shot a the Cup. If Juice bolts to free-agency, Gillis will just have to find another piece for next year.

b: This is the first year Bieksa has been asked to take on the shut-down role. he has done it better than anyone expected. An NHL GM does not overlook this sort of thing on the off chance that it might be an aberration.

Great post. ^^^

----------------------------------------------------------------------------

BXa still gives the puck away a lot and Hamhuis does the heavy lifting as a shut down guy when paired with Bieksa.

Hamhuis did a number on Ovechkin toningt, Kesler helped out a lot as well.

See if you can remember who handed the puck to Backstrom on the first period breakaway. :rolleyes:

The fact is, Hammer has been guilty of far more turnovers than Bieksa lately.

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<br />Bieksa was the best player on ice tonight. He had 30 min of ice time. That's half of the game on the second night of a back to back. He shut down Ovie completely and made lots of nice plays. I was actually quite mad that they didn't pick him as one of the stars. He was a stud out there tonight.<br />
<br /><br /><br />

I totally agree with you, Lizardman. He was playing Ducan Keith minutes.

BK 1 assist, plus 1

OV Zero points minus 1

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a: A team can't afford to trade away their top shut-down defenseman when they have a shot a the Cup. If Juice bolts to free-agency, Gillis will just have to find another piece for next year.

b: This is the first year Bieksa has been asked to take on the shut-down role. he has done it better than anyone expected. An NHL GM does not overlook this sort of thing on the off chance that it might be an aberration.

a. The Canucks do have a legit. shot to win the cup but I think that the Canucks could tinker on the fly and be just fine. But that is just speculation, my opinion versus yours. [begin Proposal Here] You bring in a top-tier prospect who could maybe play a bit this year, plus a couple of draft picks. Insert Salo where Bieksa was, still with Alberts/Rome/Parent/others as depth defensemen. Maybe trade for a depth defenseman to solidify depth concerns using the extra cap space from a Bieksa trade. [End of Proposal] The options are plenty, and I don't think that Gillis should completely discredit the option of trading Bieksa if it will help the team.

b. In Mitchell's first year as a Canuck, Mitchell and Bieksa were the shut-down pair for most of the season. It was relatively successful, but for the next 3 years, Bieksa never could regain his former self at that role. He was mostly used as a 3rd pairing defenseman, much like Ballard has been used this season. So technically this is his second shot at being a shutdown guy, he had an entire year with Mitchell doing a similar thing.

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a. The chances of re-signing Ehrhoff seem to be a lot higher than re-signing Bieksa.

Bieksa's going to want to test the market to see what he can get from other teams (I'm sure teams are a little uncertain- 1 year wonder or will this be a trend). With Ehrhoff, he's sure to have a number in mind, and it's a matter of compromising with the Canucks. And yes, if the Canucks KNEW that they were going to lose BOTH Ehrhoff and Bieksa at the end of the season, they would probably trade Ehrhoff. But they still hope they can re-sign him, I'm not sure that Bieksa is even on their radar. And as you said, Ehrhoff does have more value, which is precisely why the Canucks would keep him. I'm not suggesting selling all of the UFAs this year and foregoing a long playoff run. I am merely suggesting that given Bieksa's strong play THIS season, the fact that he is a UFA, and the fact that he is unlikely to re-sign in Vancouver, it would be beneficial in the long-term to trade him.

b. There's no way you can possibly blame his calf injury for his start to the 08 season. He missed most of the 07-08 season with the injury, but he came back and played the last 2 months of the season of 07-08. He then had the whole summer to continue "rehabbing" if you want to call it that. Then he had the Pre-season. That's a good 30-40 games, 50-80 practices and a lot more skating. I'm sorry, but I'm not buying that excuse. As for his knee injury and broken foot, yes, it might have hampered him for a short while at the start of the 08-09 season - both of those injuries occurred EARLY in the season (November) so let's say for the month of December, he wasn't up to par. But what accounts for his play from January until the end of the season?

And by the way, his defensive mishaps are a trend, healthy or not:

Giveaways:

2010 - leads the team with 28 (43 GP)

2009 - 5th on the team with 31 (55 GP) -in half the games as most

2008 - 5th on the team with 55 (72 GP)

2007 - 5th on the team with 30 (34 GP) -in half the games as most

2006 - 4th on the team with 49 (81 GP)

That's a whopping 193 Giveaways in 285 games.

His stats would be TERRIBLE if he wasn't always paired with the best shut-down defensemen (Mitchell and now Hamhuis).

And I'm definitely not happy with a defenseman who picks up 40+ points and is a minus player.

According to TSN and NHL.com he is still -1, unless it hasn't been updated since this last game. Either way, 140 pts. and a 0 rating is not very impressive, especially if you take away this year's +19, and again, the fact that he is always paired top-shutdown defensemen and still ends up a minus.

a. There is no source as to Bieksa want to test the free agent market. On the contrary, it seems likely that he would want to resign here as the Canucks gives him the best chance to have a shot at the cup. From the Canucks' perspective, resigning Bieksa is easier than Ehrhoff, cheaper and less competition for their service. And given his strong play this year, and AV using him as the backbone of our defense, it would be a big mistake to trade him as it would weaken our cup run considerably.

b. About his rehab, what you don't buy doesn't mean it didn't happened. Go see Bieksa's wiki page and read note #31.

In case you didn't noticed, up until this year, Bieksa was known as the aggressive offensive defensemen, playing defense is not his 'duty'. In that context, he fits perfectly to his role, aggressive offensive defensemen, with the defensemen part only describing his position on the ice.

You want to take away this year's +19, how about taking away his -11 in 07-08 when he came back too early and play hurt? Take that out Bieksa is playing to a career +11, pretty good number for a aggressive offensive defensemen.

On the subject of giveaways, let me give you an example:

Duncan Keith.

10-11 45G 51GvA 1st in his team

09-10 82G 59GvA 1st in his team

08-09 77G 40GvA 2nd in his team

07-08 82G 41GvA 1st in his team

06-07 82G 43GvA 1st in his team

05-06 81G 58GvA 1st in his team

That's a whopping 292GvA in 449G, for an average of 0.65

Bieksa including this year's total is 221GvA in 328G for an average of 0.67, not much difference there, except Keith consistently leads the Hawks in GvA. So if you are trashing Bieksa's defensive ability for his giveaway stats, you need to trash Duncan Keith too.

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In no way was I basing my decision solely off a relatively deceiving stat such as +-.

Let's look at the last two playoff seasons:

Bieksa:

09-10:

12 GP - 8 Points (1 on the PP) - 6 Giveaways +2

08-09:

10 GP - 5 Points (4 on the PP) - 0 Giveaways +3

Total:

22 GP - 13 Points (5 on the PP) - 6 Giveaways +5

Salo:

09-10:

12 GP - 6 Points (3 on the PP) - 5 Giveaways +2

08-09:

7 GP - 7 Points - (5 on the PP) - 1 Giveaway +0

Total

19 GP - 13 Points ( 8 on the PP) - 6 Giveaways +2

Almost identical in the playoffs. Debunked. And I'm not even going into the regular season stats in which Salo blows Bieksa out of the water.

Now here's our current scenario:

Salo is likely coming back.

If/When he does, he a. Needs a spot and b. Salary needs to move

Option 1. Waive Alberts/Rome/Whomever

or

Option 2. Trade Bieksa, Replace with Salo, who is consistently better than Bieksa and get a good package in return.

Why just the last 2 playoffs? O wait I get it, you want to selectively take out Salo's minuses. Nice try.

Salo is likely coming back, no argument. But from interviews with MG, his plan is to bring Salo back AFTER the trade deadline, when he can waiver pluggers like Rome and Alberts without fear of losing them. He has been saying Salo is not yet ready and not yet 100%, I have a feeling that Salo WILL be ready IF we have an injury to our blueline OR AFTER the trade deadline or come playoff.

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b. In Mitchell's first year as a Canuck, Mitchell and Bieksa were the shut-down pair for most of the season. It was relatively successful, but for the next 3 years, Bieksa never could regain his former self at that role. He was mostly used as a 3rd pairing defenseman, much like Ballard has been used this season. So technically this is his second shot at being a shutdown guy, he had an entire year with Mitchell doing a similar thing.

Because he was injured most of that time. You go perform at the top shutdown level while having your calf cut. Twice.

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a. There is no source as to Bieksa want to test the free agent market. On the contrary, it seems likely that he would want to resign here as the Canucks gives him the best chance to have a shot at the cup. From the Canucks' perspective, resigning Bieksa is easier than Ehrhoff, cheaper and less competition for their service. And given his strong play this year, and AV using him as the backbone of our defense, it would be a big mistake to trade him as it would weaken our cup run considerably.

b. About his rehab, what you don't buy doesn't mean it didn't happened. Go see Bieksa's wiki page and read note #31.

In case you didn't noticed, up until this year, Bieksa was known as the aggressive offensive defensemen, playing defense is not his 'duty'. In that context, he fits perfectly to his role, aggressive offensive defensemen, with the defensemen part only describing his position on the ice.

You want to take away this year's +19, how about taking away his -11 in 07-08 when he came back too early and play hurt? Take that out Bieksa is playing to a career +11, pretty good number for a aggressive offensive defensemen.

On the subject of giveaways, let me give you an example:

Duncan Keith.

10-11 45G 51GvA 1st in his team

09-10 82G 59GvA 1st in his team

08-09 77G 40GvA 2nd in his team

07-08 82G 41GvA 1st in his team

06-07 82G 43GvA 1st in his team

05-06 81G 58GvA 1st in his team

That's a whopping 292GvA in 449G, for an average of 0.65

Bieksa including this year's total is 221GvA in 328G for an average of 0.67, not much difference there, except Keith consistently leads the Hawks in GvA. So if you are trashing Bieksa's defensive ability for his giveaway stats, you need to trash Duncan Keith too.

a. Rumors about Gillis re-signing Ehrhoff. Not a peep about re-signing Bieksa. Coincidence? Perhaps. Perhaps not.

I disagree about Bieksa being "easier" to re-sign. Ehrhoff may end up costing more than Bieksa, but his consistency lends itself to having both sides with relatively prepared contract numbers. Bieksa will for sure be using this year as his neogitiating chip, whereas the Canucks will likely try to find a more manageable number that won't come back to haunt them if Bieksa returns to pre-2010 form. That's not taking into account that other teams could, and probably will, over-pay for Bieksa.

b. I'll retract the "quotes" from rehabbing. I know he had to work out over the summer to figure out his game, that wasn't my point. You said his defensive giveaways were a result of his bad leg, I disagreed and suggested he had plenty of time to work out his game - games at the end of 07-08 season, the summer rehab and the pre-season of 08-09. The link you provided actually backs my point up, thanks. He should've been good to go from the start of the 08-09. No excuses.

If you take away Bieksa's BEST season (this year) and his WORST season (injury year), he's still a career -5 defensemen.

As for the Keith, he leads his team in giveaways. Okay. I'll give you that. But what his other stats? He consistently leads his team in +-, ice time and points by a defenseman. I don't see Bieksa doing that. So until the two are comparable, I won't compare them.

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Why just the last 2 playoffs? O wait I get it, you want to selectively take out Salo's minuses. Nice try.

Salo is likely coming back, no argument. But from interviews with MG, his plan is to bring Salo back AFTER the trade deadline, when he can waiver pluggers like Rome and Alberts without fear of losing them. He has been saying Salo is not yet ready and not yet 100%, I have a feeling that Salo WILL be ready IF we have an injury to our blueline OR AFTER the trade deadline or come playoff.

Actually, I compared the last two playoffs for several reasons, mainly because Salo and Bieksa were BOTH here. Why use playoffs from a decade ago of Salo when Bieksa wasn't here? Different team. Different era. Irrelevant data.

I guess you could criticize me for not including the 06-07 since they were both here then, but neither had any meaningful stats - you can go check for yourself if you care.

And I don't disagree with you about Salo and what MG has been mentioning. My entire point from the beginning as that if Salo is healthy PRIOR to the deadline, then MG should at least consider trading Bieksa.

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Because he was injured most of that time. You go perform at the top shutdown level while having your calf cut. Twice.

He played well with Mitchell in first year (06-07). We agree. Good.

He then lost that spot during the training camp of the next season (07-08). WELL before his first calf injury. Why? Care to explain that? Could it perhaps be because of his poor defensive play?

Then when he came back, they wanted to ease him in, okay, fine I can accept that. He isn't given the shutdown role.

How about the next year? (08-09) When he was healthy - he rehabbed all summer -we already agreed on that- and was ready to go.

He must have won that spot back, right? Nope. Didn't get the gig.

Beginning of the next season (09-10). Healthy still. Shut-down role? Nope.

Then finally this year, due to the fact that Ballard wasn't performing well enough (due to his surgery), he was put into that role, and is doing well. That's fine.

I just don't trust his 3 year gap in the middle where he wasn't trusted as a defensive guy.

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