Jump to content
The Official Site of the Vancouver Canucks
Canucks Community

Who REALLY is our #1 Defense man


zombieksa

  

164 members have voted

You do not have permission to vote in this poll, or see the poll results. Please sign in or register to vote in this poll.

Recommended Posts

It's Edler, but people don't realize that he's still very young at 26. He's just entering his prime. We'll probably find that number 1 in him, when he's around 28. Even, when he sucks, he's still able to change the game with one play. At his worst game, he's still better than everyone except Hamhuis.

He's getting too much flak, he's playing on the wrong side, he's not a puck mover but being asked to play as a puck moving offensive defense man, and there is so much skill there that you want him to be more consistent.

Link to comment
Share on other sites

tanev bang for buck hands down last night he was our best D he wasnt getting caught pinching in deep giving up odd man rushes and his amazing play on the last 2 on 1 where toews shouldve had a tap in kept it at 2 goal game and kept it in reach for us to come back tanev schnieds and burrows were the only reason we even made it close. also tanev doesnt make stupid plays in our ow end he makes the simple pass and gets our team breaking out or high off the glass when our D cant get the puck out of our own end its almost never him on the ice.

Link to comment
Share on other sites

Edler has the potential and the age to RAISE HIS GAME. He needs to play as an elite dman to bring the team a true #1 in the playoffs (like Erhoff needed to do before him, but couldn't quite do it). If we ever want to stand a chance at winning the cup, we will need him to step up, or pick up another top dman.

Bieksa has a chance to be a major factor in the playoffs, but his age kind of shows that this is his peak and probably won't take another LARGE step up.

Hamhuis and Garrison are more of the same, but could be more of those "no name" top pairing shutdown D-man like a Mitchell or a Scuderi. They shouldn't be expected to score big time (even though Garrison could score).

The other D-men are "good luck", we should expect them to just be solid and play perfect D, but not really anything close to leading the Defense corps.

Link to comment
Share on other sites

FTR I'm not fond of the "criteria!"

Different guys are effective for different reasons, and we should be ansering this question with one answer only; "who is the most effective!"

Normally I would have answered Hamhuis. He has been for 2 seasons now. Although if we over rated "criteria,"which effectively means reading statistics versus watching all the subtleties of how a guy impacts a game, maybe Edler is the answer.

So far this year, I see Garrison as the guy. And its close, Ballard and Tanev have been playing well. But get back to who is most effective? Tanev ain't going to move Thornton from in front of our net. Hamhuis actually looks like he is struggling a bit, turning slower and getting beat where we would not normally see it. Perhaps he's nursing an injury. Edler and Bieksa, good offensively but a few too many gaff's lately. Garrison is not dynamic offensively, we've yet to see his shot, but is steady and the most physically capable at 220 lbs. Against the toughest match up; he'd be first over the boards, hence my vote.

And we are still really playing defence by committee as a point of fact; we don't have an undisputed #1 guy!. Because no one guy has all the skills (hence no Norris on any of our guys resume's). And even then, the committee is missing a puck rushing guy who can break pressure (see how many times we got stuck in the neutral zone against Chicago) and a 2knd right hand shot. We are great in our end, but not a top flight D team in all aspects.

I was just curious as to who CDC really thinks is our #1 defense man on the team. A lot of people might choose one player because of his defensive skills, or because of his high points total at the end of the season but I want readers to take into consideration other aspects of their games as well.

Major Criteria:

- Defensive skill: is the player expected to play against the teams best offensive players? Are they expected to log lots of minutes in their own zone? Do they play a significant role on the PK?

- Offensive flair: Does the player rack up a lot of points? Does the player just receive a lot of assists or does he find the back of the net a lot? Does he score 5 on 5 or does he rely on PP time? Does he make the PP more dangerous.

Minor Criteria:

- Is he a good skater? Is he fast? How is his fore checking and back checking?

- is his plus/minus an indication of good play or preferable deployment?

- how well does this player mesh with different defensive pairings? Does he fall apart more often than the other when partners are switched?

- Is he a leader in the room?

So take a minute and think about each one of these aspects of our top 3 defense man over the course of their career in Vancouver and make an educated decision.

:)

Dan Hamhuis: 3 Seasons: 161GP 11G 57A 68Pts 86PIM +56 7PPG 0GWG

Kevin Bieksa: 8 Seasons: 440GP 46G 150A 196Pts 670PIM +30 17PPG 9GWG

Alex Edler: 7 Seasons: 401GP 47G 148A 195Pts 212PIM +32 23PPG+1SHG 2GWG

Playoffs

Hamhuis: 24GP 1G 8A 9Pts 12PIM +3 2PPG 0GWG

Bieksa: 61GP 9G 15A 24Pts 105PIM +10 2PPG 3GWG

Edler: 55Gp 7G 20A 27Pts 34PIM +1 3PPG 0GWG

Link to comment
Share on other sites

Hard choice between Hamhuis and Edler. Edler is bigger, faster, better offensively, and throws bigger hits but Hamhuis has better positioning and is more reliable. Edler has Norris potential if he can gain some consistency but if I had to choose one to play huge minutes or be on the ice in the last minute of the game it would have to be Hamhuis, so slight edge to Hamhuis but this could easily change. Bieksa is a distant third, but will be fourth once Garrison settles in.

Link to comment
Share on other sites

Archived

This topic is now archived and is closed to further replies.

  • Recently Browsing   0 members

    • No registered users viewing this page.
×
×
  • Create New...