Quote:
Originally Posted by Jag68Sid87
It's not the shot-blocking. It's that he has to be able to do more than just block shots. He's butter soff. He has a big shot but never uses it. His reputation as a puck-mover is way overblown. And as a shutdown defender, he's putrid.
Nobody thought Hal Gill actually had more dimensions to his game than Zbynek Michalek, but after watching both of them with us it's clear that he does.
We already have 4 right-handed Dmen in Letang, Niskanen, Engelland and Bortuzzo. We don't need Michalek. For what he brings, there are $1-1.5 million players available.
We focus on Martin, and rightfully so, but Michalek is just as expendable.
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Not really. He's just a player who had a poor year, much like half of the players on our D. He isn't any less the player he was billed as when he's at the top of his game, anymore than Gonchar is a pile of useless **** just because his first year here was atrocious. You're overblowing his deficiencies in transition now, just like you were overblowing his deficiencies in shot-blocking earlier. He was never supposed to be anything more than competent in terms of adding to the offense ... people just took one comment Shero made about him having better offensive skills than he was given credit for and blew it out of proportion.
As to Hal Gill having more dimensions to his game ... what dimensions? Hal Gill is an important type of player for any team, but he is what he is ... he does basically two things well. Perhaps you can illuminate for me how exactly Gill plays some multi-faceted game in your eyes.