[Caged Great]

The Flames for the past couple seasons have been focusing on getting defenseman that are offensively oriented. Of their D last year, all of them except Sarich was an offensive minded d-man.

Usually offensive defensemen tend to be terrible, or merely adequate in their end, otherwise they make 6+ million.

In terms of a team set up, usually you need 2 guys that are good at both ends (See Keith/Seabrook/Chara/Doughty/Pieterangelo etc). The second guy doesn't need to be a star guy, but a player the level of Gio when he's good at the minimum. Secondly, you can have a player that's mostly offensive as long as they aren't completely terrible in their own zone. Brian Campbell back when he was on the Hawks, or Dennis Wideman if you shelter him a bit. The rest of the defense though should be of the shutdown variety. If they have any offensive skills, that's awesome, but it isn't necessary. Your team needs to be able to effectively shut down the opposition while being able to add some offense.