Quote:
Originally Posted by bubbsy
I think Gaudreau/Monahan's struggles have lifted a lot of attention away from Giordano this year.
He's made a lot of dumb plays, but I think that's stemming from him just trying to do too much, knowing that the offence is really struggling, so you see him being overly aggressive with pinches, etc.
The thing that troubles me far more, is that defensively, he's just not winning battles along the boards, or 50/50 pucks at the unreal rate he has in past years. Last year, when a rebound or whatever, went to the corner, and he had to go from in front of the net to the puck, him coming away winning that battle was basically an automatic.
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While I agree he's not been very good especially relative to last season, he's 36 years old and averaging almost 25 minutes on ice per game which is top 15 in the league and truth be told the entire defense as a whole has played considerably worse than last season. It's fair to assume that we will never see last season Giordano ever again which is why the window for this group may shut fast if the organization cannot replace his minutes and becomes overly dependant on a declining player anchoring the back end.