[gvitaly]

I’m really glad our defence is considered as elite and deep as they come. However, I take it with a grain of salt. We had our D proclaimed elite after we got Bouwmeester, with Regher and Phaneuf it looked amazing. Then history repeated itself when we got Hamonic… Brodie Gio, Hamilton, Hamonic, and Stone that seemed as solid as it goes at the time.

The problem with those teams is that it takes all 5 guys on the ice to defend consistently, and we had some players get away from it in the playoffs. Now, I’m a huge believer in Sutter, and the D look great on paper, but most of them also had career years last year. I wouldn’t be surprised if one of our D takes a step back. I also wouldn’t be surprised if it takes Weegar some time adjusting. He showed he can carry a pairing after Ekblad got injured, but I’m not sure how much he played away from Barkov as well. Barkov is one of the players that makes the life of his D very easy.

I still expect a top 10 D despite everything. Its biggest test would be to see if it can limit McDavid, and EDM’s PP. I would be a lot more impressed when we start winning against them with the scores of 2-1 or 3-2 instead of 9-6 or 6-5.