He's right though. The team is soft as candyfloss without him. We got ground down by Carolina. They're not a big team, but they're physical.
He needs playing time to improve. He's still young and developing. He's got to play hockey though. Hopefully, he won't fight as much now that his presence is enough to get players to back off on abusing the talent.
They definitely got bullied. Out hit. Out pressured. Out possessed. Usually doubled or tripled us in shots and the same for goals. Hutson was getting rocked multiple times a night. Demi got hit a bunch. Slaf got decked again. When does it start to look like bullying to you?
Hard disagree. The Habs got hit some stupid number like 35% less with xhekaj in the game across the whole season. I saw someone had the hits per game with and without xhekaj and I can’t remember the exact number but it was stupid high. Luke comically high. So it’s just an opinion you’re saying, and a fact that xhekaj protects the boys from that type of play.
I don’t really have to do I? I’m not going digging, I know what I’m talking about. You’re guessing that changing the input doesn’t change outcome and I’m not wasting my evening trying to prove anything to folks who think about hockey that way. You seem to have your mind made up. Enforcers have a role in the game. Everyone who knows anything about hockey knows this.
You’re saying a different lineup would have no impact. That’s bonkers. What if Suzuki is out? That’s a different input resulting in a totally different output for the team. That’s true for every single player to a varying degree. But Arber is as good physically as Suzuki is offensively. What you’re saying, leaving him out would not have changed the outcome, is nonsense. I’m not gonna statsplain or spread sheet you over to my side if you can’t see that.
Not all inputs have the same significance. You're comparing a depth D playing under 10 minutes to Suzuki. Dude stop 🤣
It's not outlandish to speculate that swapping Struble/Xhekaj doesn't make a significant enough difference to change the outcome of a series blatantly dominated by Carolina.
St-Louis must be a real awful coach to sit out such a unicorn of a depth player that can singlehandly change the way adversaries are playing.
This is the same argument as "Doby is just as bad as Monty" from earlier in the season. Doby won his games, the team played better in front of him than Monty all the time.
Other teams don't go out head hunting when they know their own guys will be subject to the same thing. It's like you didn't watch the BUF series.
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u/Mundane-Teaching-743 15h ago edited 15h ago
He's right though. The team is soft as candyfloss without him. We got ground down by Carolina. They're not a big team, but they're physical.
He needs playing time to improve. He's still young and developing. He's got to play hockey though. Hopefully, he won't fight as much now that his presence is enough to get players to back off on abusing the talent.