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Originally Posted by Flames Draft Watcher
Yep. Anyone who relies too much on stats misses dynamics like big, strong players making your other players feel safer, or bigger or tougher, just cause they know guys like Ferland, Engelland, Bollig and Bouma have their back. Easy to spot which fans don't understand that dynamic as they constantly question the need for those types of players in our lineup.
This is part of why I say you can't scratch the only big, strong, tough defenseman you have. We become too easy to play against back there. That team toughness means something even though you can't measure it easily. Engelland plastering guys along the boards is good for morale. Team morale, fan morale. Engelland stepping in and taking exception to another team's forward running around is a good thing. Having guys like Bollig and Engelland keeps certain players and teams more honest. They are potentially reducing the amount of liberties other physical players will take with our young players.
We need more toughness on the backend not less. We're not going to scratch the only guy providing it, that's silly.
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All conjecture and opinion. WHich you're welcome to, but just recognize that there's no proof, other than anecdote, of what you're saying.
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Hjalmarsson is one of the best physical defensive defensemen in the entire league. A very underrated part of the reason why they are successful.
We badly need a player like Hjalmarsson. Add that and a real goalie and suddenly most of our problems would be gone.
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Hjalmarsson isn't physical. He's effective, and he skews towards defensive(though his actual production is pretty close to Kris Russell), but he's not especially physical. No more than Gio or Hamilton. And yes we badly need a player as GOOD as Hjalmarsson on our second pair. I'll be the first to say that much.