Will This Year's Blue Line Live Up To the Wild Standard?

Dumba is a good player who became a scapegoat???

Dumba was a good player who made bad decisions, took stupid penalties, was a liability and a financial burden at $6 million who was only kept around for the locker room.

He had two good months when he saw the light at the end of the tunnel. He should thank Brodin for all the stats.

All I saw against the top lines was Brodin blanketing the best player on the ice and Dumba doing what Dumba does. Another caveat was Brodin played some stretches of games injured and still covered for Dumba.

No other team wanted him at the trade deadline or had any interest in his long lost talent and accompanying salary.

There is a reason he is still a free agent. He'll be lucky if the Yotes take a flier on him for $2 million a year. 

Let the BF(Brock Faber)Era begin....Best Friend of Brodin and our "D"!

Otherwise, great insight on our D core. We should be fine this year with Gus back in the fold and happy with his new contract. 

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So, is the blue line strong enough? The answer can be yes. Middleton and Spurgeon have been a consistently strong pairing. Brodin is the league’s best and most criminally underrated shut-down defenseman. Faber stepped on the NHL ice last spring and impressed even the coaching staff with his defensive ability. Add to that Addison with better defensive skills after working on them this summer, and those are five out of six solid, reliable defensemen. Only time will tell, but the pre-season will be interesting for the blue line this year.

Mikki, I'm sorry, but I only see 4 with a decent defensive skill. Addison has to improve drastically just to be considered a liability on defense. If we can get him to that level, perhaps he won't stick out so poorly.

That said, I think I'd leave the Spurgeon-Middleton pairing together. I'd pair Brodin with Addison and Goligoski with Faber. I'd role the pairings except for special teams. If we're protecting a 3rd period lead, I'd suggest running 2 D on the point and teaming Brodin with Faber and running with 4 D for the rest of the game.

Also, on Luke's tweet about the playoff series against Dallas, did Spurgeon-Middleton do that poorly? That certainly looks like a huge RED FLAG that needs to be investigated!

13 minutes ago, mnfaninnc said:

Mikki, I'm sorry, but I only see 4 with a decent defensive skill. Addison has to improve drastically just to be considered a liability on defense. If we can get him to that level, perhaps he won't stick out so poorly.

That said, I think I'd leave the Spurgeon-Middleton pairing together. I'd pair Brodin with Addison and Goligoski with Faber. I'd role the pairings except for special teams. If we're protecting a 3rd period lead, I'd suggest running 2 D on the point and teaming Brodin with Faber and running with 4 D for the rest of the game.

Also, on Luke's tweet about the playoff series against Dallas, did Spurgeon-Middleton do that poorly? That certainly looks like a huge RED FLAG that needs to be investigated!

Spurgeon was not himself or anywhere near what he did during the regular season. Dallas' physical game left him lacking any presence. He almost look like he was playing hurt.

Middy was obviously distracted and drawn into the physical game also, leaving their cohesiveness off track. Our whole game plan went out the window playing catch up against their physical, non penalty style and PP.

8 hours ago, vonlonster67 said:

Dumba is a good player who became a scapegoat???

Dumba was a good player who made bad decisions, took stupid penalties, was a liability and a financial burden at $6 million who was only kept around for the locker room.

He had two good months when he saw the light at the end of the tunnel. He should thank Brodin for all the stats.

All I saw against the top lines was Brodin blanketing the best player on the ice and Dumba doing what Dumba does. Another caveat was Brodin played some stretches of games injured and still covered for Dumba.

No other team wanted him at the trade deadline or had any interest in his long lost talent and accompanying salary.

There is a reason he is still a free agent. He'll be lucky if the Yotes take a flier on him for $2 million a year. 

Let the BF(Brock Faber)Era begin....Best Friend of Brodin and our "D"!

Otherwise, great insight on our D core. We should be fine this year with Gus back in the fold and happy with his new contract. 

There has been many articles disproving what you’ve said about Dumba.

He has absolutely been a scapegoat. Misinformed or ignorant fans love to parrot what you’ve said.

”They came in 4th for goals against in 60 minutes for defensive pairings with 500+ minutes of ice time this past season. That’s even better than Minnesota’s Spurgeon-Middleton top pairing”

This 👆 wasn’t all Brodin, that’s not how it works.

Is he worth 6 million a year? No, but it was worth it at the time because he was on his way to being a prime PK Subban.

Anytime you have a 24 year old defenseman that puts up 50pts, you pay him before he becomes really expensive. That’s what they did with Boldy.

What happened with his injury was unfortunate, not much you can do when a player hurts himself and doesn’t return the same.

Regardless what you think, Dumba was not usually the worst in giveaways/takeaways and often started in the defensive zone.

Before he got hurt, he was usually one of the top scoring defensemen on the team and he’s always been a player who stands up for his team mates, hits and blocks shots.

2 hours ago, Mateo3xm said:

There has been many articles disproving what you’ve said about Dumba.

He has absolutely been a scapegoat. Misinformed or ignorant fans love to parrot what you’ve said.

”They came in 4th for goals against in 60 minutes for defensive pairings with 500+ minutes of ice time this past season. That’s even better than Minnesota’s Spurgeon-Middleton top pairing”

This 👆 wasn’t all Brodin, that’s not how it works.

Is he worth 6 million a year? No, but it was worth it at the time because he was on his way to being a prime PK Subban.

Anytime you have a 24 year old defenseman that puts up 50pts, you pay him before he becomes really expensive. That’s what they did with Boldy.

What happened with his injury was unfortunate, not much you can do when a player hurts himself and doesn’t return the same.

Regardless what you think, Dumba was not usually the worst in giveaways/takeaways and often started in the defensive zone.

Before he got hurt, he was usually one of the top scoring defensemen on the team and he’s always been a player who stands up for his team mates, hits and blocks shots.

Your opinion, you never addressed the penalties which were counterproductive to the stats you just presented, the fact no one wanted to trade for him and if you watched the games you don't need to parrot anything.

Please forward those articles and attach them to this discussion otherwise you may the one who is misinformed.

NGL kinda sad seeing the Dumba era come to an end. Great dude in the locker room and in the community. 
 

Going to miss his physical presence a little bit on the blueline which Faber won’t be able to replace. Man he could lay some beauty open ice hits though (when they connected and he didn’t whiff which happened more often than not). NOT going to miss hearing Lapanta say “Dumba misses the net high and wide” 10x a game. NOT going to miss the ill-timed penalties and brutal d-zone turnovers. 

On 8/5/2023 at 8:50 AM, vonlonster67 said:

Dumba is a good player who became a scapegoat???

Dumba was a good player who made bad decisions, took stupid penalties, was a liability and a financial burden at $6 million who was only kept around for the locker room.

He had two good months when he saw the light at the end of the tunnel. He should thank Brodin for all the stats.

All I saw against the top lines was Brodin blanketing the best player on the ice and Dumba doing what Dumba does. Another caveat was Brodin played some stretches of games injured and still covered for Dumba.

No other team wanted him at the trade deadline or had any interest in his long lost talent and accompanying salary.

There is a reason he is still a free agent. He'll be lucky if the Yotes take a flier on him for $2 million a year. 

Let the BF(Brock Faber)Era begin....Best Friend of Brodin and our "D"!

Otherwise, great insight on our D core. We should be fine this year with Gus back in the fold and happy with his new contract. 

It appears Dumba will be signing a one year deal with Arizona for $3.9 million. That is almost double the $2 million you predicted, so the Yotes must think Dumba is worth the risk.

32 minutes ago, Quebec1648 said:

It appears Dumba will be signing a one year deal with Arizona for $3.9 million. That is almost double the $2 million you predicted, so the Yotes must think Dumba is worth the risk.

WE are talking about the most mismanaged franchise in the NHL playing in a college arena with no home in sight.

Not the most appealing place for any player unless they're only worried about the money, like the sun and plan to be a bottom feeder for the next 3-5 years!

2 hours ago, Quebec1648 said:

It appears Dumba will be signing a one year deal with Arizona for $3.9 million. That is almost double the $2 million you predicted, so the Yotes must think Dumba is worth the risk.

Good for Dumba.  One year deal isn't a risk really when you are rebuilding.

On 8/5/2023 at 10:54 AM, vonlonster67 said:

Spurgeon was not himself or anywhere near what he did during the regular season. Dallas' physical game left him lacking any presence. He almost look like he was playing hurt.

Middy was obviously distracted and drawn into the physical game also, leaving their cohesiveness off track. Our whole game plan went out the window playing catch up against their physical, non penalty style and PP.

This may indeed be true, that Spurgeon played hurt, however, when looking at his previous playoff performances, it seems he hasn't been a good playoff performer for awhile. I'd suggest in the playoffs, he's a 2nd pairing guy.

19 minutes ago, mnfaninnc said:

This may indeed be true, that Spurgeon played hurt, however, when looking at his previous playoff performances, it seems he hasn't been a good playoff performer for awhile. I'd suggest in the playoffs, he's a 2nd pairing guy.

Your right on with the 2nd pairing analogy. There's gonna come a time when another good guy may need to move on from the team

1 hour ago, vonlonster67 said:

Your right on with the 2nd pairing analogy. There's gonna come a time when another good guy may need to move on from the team

 

It happens to all off them sooner or later.

3 hours ago, Up North Guy said:

It happens to all off them sooner or later.

Father Time remains undefeated!

Midds and Tank

Brodin and Addison

Faber and Merril/Goggles

Maybe?