I don't think any of us are complaining with that haha. Overall, the defense is solid, except for a few positioning mishaps. It is filled with 2nd pair guys and one #6 (Salvo). It is missing that #1 guy and we all hope AL can become that stud. Plus, the prospect pool is looking promising.
And we're all fine with that, I assume. Tallinder, Volch, Fayne, Greene, and Salvador are all solid PKers.
Considering we ranked 2nd in the league in PK with 92.1% I would say we're happy.
Fayne is on pace for 14 goals, 14 assists right now. Likely a stretch for him to get that many goals though. By comparison Tallinder had the most goals by a defenseman with 5 last season, and Greene had the most points with 23.
Fayne has been our most consistent defender all year
It's been a while since I've been completely comfortable with one of our defensemen every time he had the puck or was out on the ice.......has very good poise
I can buy what you're selling. Fayne is calm in the d-zone and I love his shot on the blueline. Very accurate and deflectable. Should be a very solid middle guy in his prime.
I've liked Fayne for a while, but this summer I wasn't sure we could trust him to be the middle pairing guy we needed him to be, in just his second season. He has more than assuaged my fears, and exceeded my expectations.
Quote:
Originally Posted by Tedenby21
Considering we ranked 2nd in the league in PK with 92.1% I would say we're happy.
That has a lot to do with the quality of forwards we put on the PK too. Pretty much our entire top 6 except Palmieri and Sykora have killed penalties at some point this season: Parise, Elias, Kovalchuk, Josefson, Henrique, and Zubrus are all no strangers to the PK.
Quote:
Originally Posted by bige14
Fayne is on pace for 14 goals, 14 assists right now. Likely a stretch for him to get that many goals though. By comparison Tallinder had the most goals by a defenseman with 5 last season, and Greene had the most points with 23.
His shot is not the hardest, but he always finds a way to get it through, and sometimes that catches goalies off guard, like we saw with Enroth. That's an impressive and valuable skill.
Nobody was really sold on him going into the season
The guy had a pretty good rookie campaign and myself and a lot of others were warry as to whether or not he could continue his solid play or if last year was just a fluke
I'm not sure that's fair. There were at least a few people who felt Fayne was pretty much a gimme as a NHL player based on what they saw last year.
Yeah, not to toot my horn, but I did not think last year was a fluke. I expected him to make the team over "favorites" like Taormina, Urbom, and other flashier players.
Sorry for not being clear enough, but nobody was obviously a genneralization and what I was trying to say was there was uncertainy that he could continue like he did last season
I recall having several conversations with several different people about the uncertainy of Fayne coming into this season
What he showed last season, yea he was capable of handling an NHL work load and he jumped in a few months removed from college very nicely but there were question marks about Fayne coming into this season regardless of how good he looked last season as it was just a sample size to take from
Fortunately he's been everything and more than he was last season and he's a lot of fun for me at least, to watch
well, I think if the PP doesn't improve you just start rolling your lines and going with familiarity. none of Tallinder/Greene/Fayne/Larsson are what you would consider solid points at this point, but if you're throwing away your entire PP alot of the time, just roll your top two lines.
