Quote:
Originally Posted by Sandman
Blocking shots is like killing cockroaches-if you do it once or twice, you're alright. If you're doing it all the time, you have a problem.
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Not the best analogy. Shots on goal are a normal part of every hockey game. Cockroaches are not a normal part of every house.
The plain fact of the matter is that Russell blocks shots because he's not big enough or strong enough to muscle the puck away from opposing forwards. His best bet for preventing shots on goal is to let the opponent take the shot and try to block it. At his size, if he tried to play defence in the normal way, he'd have been lunch meat years ago.
It just happens that he is good enough and relentless enough at shot-blocking to partly make up for his deficiencies. So far as it goes, that is a good thing. But the pooh-bahs of so-called advanced stats have got it in their heads that there is only one way to play defence effectively, and that is to suppress shot
attempts. Their metrics were never designed to account for the idea that someone might block shots as a matter of strategy. Some of them actually seem to believe a defenceman who blocks shots is automatically worse than one who never tries.