hitmen4 wrote on Thu, 03 February 2022 08:03

Skookum Jim wrote on Wed, 02 February 2022 21:49 watchman wrote on Wed, 02 February 2022 17:46 ...maybe BOUCH can't turn to his right? Have to say I'm plesantly surprised, an unexpected win! Trying not to pick on Bouchard, but he served a hot pepperoni, extra-large pizza for the Caps first goal.. got the caps back in the game.. The guy is weak as a kitten on cycles, and puck retrievals.. loses one on one puck battles consistently.. gets turnstiled at least once or twice a game.. slow-twitch neurons.. He's over matched on the top D pairing.. defensive liability in general.. I was almost thinking Barrie should replace him to shore up the defensive game.. who's worse defensively? Foegel proving why he was dropped to the 4th line, bad passes, bad decisions, no hands. McDavid was absolutely flying. Kane displaying his scoring touch, still out of shape.. 17 games to go (I figured it'll take 20 games to get in shape) Kosko was OK. Team in general still doesn't like to engage physically and finish checks.. which I find just freaking bizarre. What a joke of a take. Bouchard has played all of 63 NHL games and you're carving him up because he's not a first pairing guy yet? Of course he's going to have some defensive mistakes, and probably lots of them. He's essentially a rookie defenseman even if the weird NHL rules for what qualifies a rookie says he's not. Bottom line is that Bouchard is still one of our best defenseman. In terms of defenseman, he's #1 on the team in points, goals, assists. 2nd in +/-. If you don't like the traditional counting stats, here are his fancies: CF%: 54.88 XGF%: 54.15 SCF%: 52.28 HDCF%: 51.02 He's on the right side of 50% on all counts, despite his defensive errors. He's already an elite offensive defenseman. To be honest his defensive game actually isn't that bad when you consider he plays over 21 minutes a night despite only playing 63 NHL games. Rookie defenseman, even the elite ones, just aren't that good defensively most of the time. Luckily for those guys is most of them don't have to deal with portions of their fan base that think every defenseman that's 6'-3 needs to be the second coming of Chris Pronger before they've even played a full season.

Viewer bias plays such a big role on people's impressions of players - especially young defencemen. Mistakes near the net are more memorable than mistakes in the attacking zone, because they lead to great chances against and goals.

People forget that a defenceman playing over 20 minutes a game has a lot of plays and touches of the puck, and that if the vast majority of those are good ones (which often as unspectacular and unmemorable) then they're a net positive, even if there's one or two glaring errors.

Coaching staffs should be working with young players and video to try to reduce mistakes, but no one is ever going to play a perfect game. I mean, one of the most memorable Mario Lemieux goals has him absolutely undressing a veteran Ray Bourque, so everyone can still get beat for a goal or make the wrong play.

There's no question it would have been better if we could have played Bouchard more in the role that Barrie's had this year - sheltered minutes and PP time - and had someone else do the heavy lifting. But the team really needed a third line winger...

"Thinking that a bad team's best players are the reason the team is bad is the "Tambellini re-signing Lennart Petrell" of sports opinions." @Woodguy55
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