Quote:
Originally Posted by GioforPM
The goal he scored last game? Was it not a slapper that got through?
Frankly, Wideman gets way more than his share of criticism this year. He's actually been more solid defensively than Brodie - he's just been playing better positionally as is more physical. He's better than the bottom pair (Engelland is good enough until it's time to move the puck out of the defensive zone - talk about giveaways). Offensively, his pinches have been way smarter than Brodie's this year, and he sure has been maing nice passes.
To me the game threads are silent about him though a lot of minutes of solid play, until he makes the odd mistake, and then there's 10 posts calling for him to be executed.
I sound like a Wideman fan. I'm not. I figured he was way too slow and a huge liability and wanted him gone, prior to his benching a couple years ago. He sure improved that season, and I'm seeing a lot of the same this year (after last year's multi-level debacle).
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Standing and watching, while Brodie does ALL of the heavy lifting defensively, does not make Wideman "more solid defensively than Brodie".
It never ceases to amaze me how people can't see that a big difference in Brodie's play this year is because he is the one in the corner all night fighting the forwards by himself.
Who your partner is, makes a HUGE difference for how defensmen perform.