Quote:
Originally Posted by Flames Draft Watcher
Hanifin also just turned 23 this week. He’s still improving. You need patience with young defensemen. Trading him this early in his career would be stupidity.
Answer me this. At what age did Giordano and Brodie peak? Look at Hanifin’s age again.
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Here we go again with the age thing - how long do we need to take into account the merits of the actual players at the current time, not something that the person is in the future.
For the Flames, Brodie has proven himself to be a top tier d-man beside Gio for countless years now. But at times, he looks soft. This year, he's looking great again.
Hamonic looked terrible when he first joined the Flames and it took some adjustments for him to fit in, but he's been pretty much what Tre's been looking for as a stable 2nd line D-man and on the right side at that. Hamonic was supposed to be the stay-at-home type similar to Regher in some ways, but yet he's exceeded that by jumping in down low and blocking a lot of dangerous shots.
Hanifin - everyone says he's a great skater, but on countless times, fast forwards have blown past him on the wide side and he's got no speed to match when he's trying to catch up. On the defensive zone, he's left people more wide open and that's led to Hamonic giving up his side to compensate. To me, Hanifin is very similar to J-Bo when he was with the Flames. Some nights good, most night not so good.
As for age, I don't care how old a player is, I'm just looking at the actual plays and I'm calling it as it is. Age and speed are all relative terms and don't mean much when it comes to getting the job done. If the person or player can get the job done effectively, age is irrelevant. Age may be relevant for long term projection and depending on the plans of the team to win now or in the somewhere in the distant future. Even then, you may run out of time for some players.
IMO, if you can keep Brodie and/or Hamonic and can part with Hanifin to get more depth on the D, it's the best thing than losing either of the D on the right side.