Quote:
Originally Posted by Bobblehead
Not 100% sure Barker played a significant role in that....was likely more Khabibulin...... but then there's a lot of things players do that don't show up on the score sheet. And we do have a WAY better record with Barker. Does he keep guys to the outside? Not let them get to prime scoring areas? Does he make simple plays to move the puck tape to tape? That in itself is huge! Dman doesn't have to rack up tons of assists to be a good puck mover. Just has to anticipate well, get on the puck early and move it tape -to -tape. When we're sucking, our dmen are getting to the puck late and then just shovelling it around the boards to someone who has to fish it off their backhand. We get no flow, no easy outs...... Easy outs.... that's huge. Don't have game tape to see what Barker was like? But guys like Ference, Seidenberg, Sekara are all very good at this.
I'd bring him back for $1.5 - $2 if he can get healthy.
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and I'm not saying it was all Barker either, but he was part of it. I think people are of the opinion he was playing poorly because they view him as an offensive guy and he wasn't putting up a lot of points... but what he was doing was playing safe and not really making many mistakes on the ice... and if we've seen anything from this oilers team is this season is that they will play close in most games but they'll make those key mistakes at key times and lose teh game as a result. Having another defensemen out there who isn't really making mistakes makes them stronger as a whole.
