A Flyers Norris Candidate? Damn Streit!

[ASquared]

For all the criticism Philadelphia's blue line has received, how on earth can it produce an actual Norris Trophy Candidate?

http://goo.gl/4VKZvI

[VintageVibe]

Shenanigans... Streit is a great dman I'll grant you but a season ending injury bug would have to hit a couple dozen defensemen around the league for this to happen.

It was a fun read but man o man you guys must really be bored to come up with some of the stuff you write... Any more farfetched and I'd mistake it as a writeup from The Onion.

[ASquared]

Shenanigans... Streit is a great dman I'll grant you but a season ending injury bug would have to hit a couple dozen defensemen around the league for this to happen.

It was a fun read but man o man you guys must really be bored to come up with some of the stuff you write... Any more farfetched and I'd mistake it as a writeup from The Onion.

I'll admit it's farfetched in the aspect that these awards have turned into a popularity contest. Look at last season's winner, for example. Nothing against Duncan Keith, but there's NO WAY he was the "best defenseman" in the league last year. No way.

[Big Ev]

Jesus Christ

[rataylor22]

I'll admit it's farfetched in the aspect that these awards have turned into a popularity contest. Look at last season's winner, for example. Nothing against Duncan Keith, but there's NO WAY he was the "best defenseman" in the league last year. No way.

It's farfetched in the aspect that Streit just isn't nearly a good enough defenseman to do it. Plain and simple. Not a top 30 dman.

[ASquared]

It's farfetched in the aspect that Streit just isn't nearly a good enough defenseman to do it. Plain and simple. Not a top 30 dman.

Points wise, he is. And let's face it, that trophy is more offense oriented than actually playing the position masterfully.

[VintageVibe]

Points wise, he is. And let's face it, that trophy is more offense oriented than actually playing the position masterfully.

Tell that to Big Z. Or Duncan Keith. Or Drew Doughty. They are all-stars in all three ends of the ice.

I think what we're trying to say is that Streit would be the best ALL AROUND dman (i.e the #1 Dman) on maybe one or two NHL teams. Streit's strengths lie in his offensive prowess more so than his defensive and even then I could name off two dozen defensemen that play the game better in all three zones of the rink. For example, and let's not even talk about offense for a second, Streit would not be taken over Chara, Weber, Keith, Doughty, Hedman, Suter, Ekman-Larsson, McDonagh, etc... (I could probably name 15-20 more #1 Dmen who I'd take over him in all 3 zones) in a shutdown role.

And to defend Karlsson's trophy - the swede has played 180 games (missed 31 games in the shortened season) in the past 3 seasons and has produced 166 points (33 more points than Keith (2nd on that list) who played 28 more games) - for whatever weaknesses he still may possess in his own end (though he has gotten much better - especially last season) he does more than enough in the O-zone to be considered a masterful blue liner. He can do what no other defenseman in the league can - is that not the definition of "playing the position masterfully"?