Quote:
Originally Posted by Red John
They didn't bring him in to be a one-dimensional defensive shutdown guy.
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Actually they basically did, if you amend to "defensive guy with big shot". This is revisionist history. He was brought in to a) be a strong defensive complement to Edler's offensive roaming style, and b) replace Salo's ~8 goals per season that he was at at that point. At the time of the signing, every Van analyst / blog was going "well, the 16 goals last year were clearly an anomaly, but he's been one of the better defensive guys in the east for a couple of seasons". Either way, he's on pace for better than 10 goals per season, and has been good in his own end in spite of the Canucks generally icing a borderline AHL quality middle six lately.