Quote:
Originally Posted by Hockeyman
On one hand I've seen enough of Subban's games(There's not much else to watch in Montreal) to say that at times he is a defensive liability.
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Yeah, im not going to sit here and say he's never been a liability. But I think of hockey as a zero sum game, and more often than not subban is doing good things way more than bad. one thing that I think the eye test misses a lot in hockey is the little things good (most of the time offensive) defensemen do to qquickly transition the puck from the d zone into the offensive zone. It's why guys like Subban and Karlsson get ragged on a lot. Both are high incident players, so lots of things happen when theyre on the ice. hockey culture in general is very risk averse, but you need those guys because of how much they generate.
similarly, when we used to have tom gilbert, most fans (including myself for a bit) really didn't like him. it was the same deal with his reputation being that he couldn't play in his own zone. but make no mistake, he is very good. I wish the oilers had held on to him because at the time he was probably the best we had. And he was fantastic last year as well. Him and Campbell were one of the absolute best d pairings in the whole league and were criminally underrated. if they ever play him with subban this year, im sure some fans will hate it, but it would probably be a ridiculously good top pairing.