Quote:
Originally Posted by Ryan Coke
Yeah, he is ok. But he is not particularly good at anything either. He isn't big and strong, certainly not physical, not a good shot, not a great puck mover, and merely an ok skater. To me there is nothing about his game that makes him irreplaceable, and it has nothing to do with letting young players develop. I've got lots of patience to let Brodie make mistakes, because he has so much upside.
Like I said, he is fine for now, but with a limited upside he is a guy that eventually you try to improve the talent level at his position to make him expendable.
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Butler skates really well. He might not be as quick as Brodie, Giordano and Bouwmeester but he is still a good skater and well above average. He makes some mistakes but he is constantly improving.
I crunched some numbers just to see the difference and because of both the shortened season and him playing about 5 minutes less per game I based the numbers on minutes played.
Also it should be noted in addition to his ice-time dropping significantly, his roles changed as well. Here is a breakdown of his ice-time in each of his seasons.
2011/12 - ES 86.28%, PP 3.38%, PK 10.34%
2012/13 - ES 88.82%, PP 0.29%, PK 10.89%
In 2012/13 Butler saw his hits per minute increase by 49%. His blocked shots per minute increase by 28% and his giveaways per minute drop by 4%. Those first 2 numbers are dramatic improvements to his game. The latter while a small improvement is still a step in the right direction, especially considering how much worse the team has been as a whole defensively this year.
I am not saying Butler is some great defenseman or anything but people need to lose their bias if they expect to survive a rebuild. We want players that are improving, especially players still in their RFA years that are still improving.