Quote:
Originally Posted by pgsieve
I am surprised so many people are writing off Russell. I thought he was one of the better D we had last year and he is still a relatively young guy. To me.. Russell was intentionally put on a different line from Brodie to even up the defence. If we went with Brodie/Russell when Gio went down, we would have a much bigger hole on the 2 D pairing. I don't mind Russell/Hamilton as the second pairing and you put Wideman on the third pair so he has more gas and can be more of a PP specialist.
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Russell's strengths come into play when he has the puck.
In the defensive zone, without the puck, he severely struggles in regaining possession. He and Wideman both struggle with this. Their solution to getting the puck back is blocking a shot, and hopefully having it go to one of their forwards or defensive partner.
However, when they do have the puck - both Wideman and Russell are quite good at moving it up the ice and pushing the offensive tempo.
1A: Giordano
1B: Brodie
2: Hamilton
3: Wideman
4: Russell
5: Engelland
6: Smid