I see it more as him looking lost out there - a hockey IQ thing. Not good, but not work ethic related. Eakins, team management, and the rest of the coaching staff have been very clear that he works hard out on the ice. It's not that they just hpost-game scrums etc, but to criticize him for something that has been continually been put forth as a strength by those who work with him seems rather unfair.
Has he improved his physical play? I posted some video clips on here a while back of Yakupov bailing when he was about to get checked. It was on more than one occasion. I believe that he made some comments about players having different roles on the team - and that his role wasn't that of a checker.
I imagine that if he improved that aspect of his game that it would go a long way towards his success as a hockey player.
As a fan of the Penguins, I wouldn't be against a trade of Letang for Yakupov. I believe that Malkin could motivate him to a level we haven't seen yet.
Watching these playoffs, it's painfully clear that the Penguins need to trade Letang. I'm not sure how much better Yakupov makes them, but that $7mil cap hit looks like even more of an albatross now than it did when he signed. They would be much better suited re-signing Niskanen at 4-5 and using that extra 2-3 in cap space on their bottom 6 forwards. So I'd love to see a Letang for Yakupov+ trade.
I once traded Henrik Lundqvist and Ilya Kovalchuk in return for Peter Budaj and Henrik Zetterberg… have lived in shame ever since.
Fantasy hockey contributor for Dobber Hockey, founder of www.darrenfantasyhockey.com. Admitted Valeri Nichushkin fanboy (of course who isn't?)
You can find me on twitter @FantasyHockeyDK
are you on your period or something
you attack me because i don't agree with you
let me explain something to you moron, the one not using his brain is the one that thinks that the Oilers problem is they don't have enough one way offensive players on their team and need to add another
instead of being a condescending prick and an ******* you should probably learn something about the team you are talking about
so you are going to try to tell me that Letang is good defensively
by all means do so, you may as well shoot all of your credibility in the foot in one go
Letang is not the player you acquire when you want to be tougher to play against in your own end of the ice
and redundant or not you don't trade a player who allegedly can play solid defense and puts up the kind of offense he does
they are kind of a rare breed and every team would have 6 of them if they could find that many of them
Good? No. Not a chance. Better defensively than anyone else on the Oilers? Yea I probably stick to that line of thinking. Better offensively than anyone else on the Oilers? Yup I definitely stick to that thinking too. Problem is it's just not that easy to find high caliber defensive defensemen. Teams don't trade those guys. Who is a better D-man who would possibly be available that they could trade for? Letang is average in his own end, not horrid but not great either. Does he make Edmonton a better defensive team and a better team overall? Compared to what they currently have, yes he does.
i am sorry i just don't agree that Letang is average in his own end
you don't trade a guy that is average in his own end with the kind of offensive ability that he has
the only way a guy with his offensive ability is not worth keeping around on a team is if he isn't very good in his own end
We will have to agree to disagree. You trade him because you've been fine offensively all season with Martin/Niskanen on the PP (the finished first overall in PP%) and Pittsburgh has an awful bottom 6. His $7mil cap hit could be much better spent in other areas when the team showed this year they don't need his offensive contributions to be successful. Niskanen at $4.5mil plus a bottom 6 forward at $2.5mil plus adding Yakupov into your top six is better than Letang at $7mil.
Like I said we can agree to disagree. But this isn't really an issue of Letang. He is average in his own end, and elite in the offensive zone, the issue is just that as a cap team, Pittsburgh needs to consider the best investment of their cap space, and they have shown (and these playoffs have shown) that while they have the offensive talent on the back end to absorb the loss of Letang, their bottom 6 talent is abysmal and kills them when they play deeper teams like Boston and Chicago.