To me Russell has become my poster boy for my travels into analytics and where data and stats need to be in comparison to what you actually see.
We see what we see? But do we see it with biases? Stats are true, you can't debate that, but do they sometimes get over used because of sample size, or situation, or off years, fluke years. Do they cover everything?
Russell in Calgary is a beast and a great defenseman to many. He's a go to guy worth $5.5M to McKenzie. And he's one of the worst possession players in the game to analytics guys.
It's like the preseason when I got in a spat with a guy from Toronto about Calgary's goaltending. I said trade Hiller because Ramo is the better goaltending. He hammered me with stats as to why I was an idiot to which I replied the eye test doesn't support that. Again I was essentially called an idiot. In the end I think we can all agree that Ramo won out.
So with differing opinions on Russell I think you need to find that middle ground, less money, and a reasonable role going forward.
At the time though there's too much view about the guy being a complete warrior not to take advantage of his over hyped value and deal him. But part of me hopes he doesn't find the $5M pay day in the first 5 days of July and then resigns in Calgary for $3M per season.
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