Quoting: kingsfaninSD
Edmonton needs to add for this trade to work.
Quoting: CD282
Quite likely. Depends on how much Dorion wants a shutdown defenseman i guess.
Here's some research on Russell I posted elsewhere:
"Russell is pretty bad at playing NHL-level defense for someone who's touted as being a defensive-minded player."
You present your opinion as fact, on this subject and many others. But does your opinion hold up in the light of day? Let's take a look.
There are 31 teams in the league and each team puts 6 defensemen on the ice every game, meaning that there are 186 regular defense jobs available in the NHL. To get a picture of the 186 most used defensemen at 5v5, you simply set the filter at 550 minutes minimum. So everything we look at here is based on the top 186 "regular" defensemen by 5v5 TOI.
Because the accusation is that Russell can't defend, I'll highlight some of his defensive metrics as per naturalstattrick.com.
CA/60: 56.04 (102nd of 186)
FA/60: 39.03 (32nd)
SA/60: 27.44 (15th)
GA/60: 1.62 (3rd)
HDCA/60: 9.97 (58th)
Def Zone Starts/60: 8.66 (63rd)
What can we deduce from these numbers? His corsi against numbers are about median for top-6 defensemen, giving the lie to your statement that "if you're blocking a lot of shots, it means you're giving up a lot of shots." He does in fact defend a lot, but that's due to coaching decisions to have him out for defensive zone faceoffs more than any Oilers player not named Adam Larsson.
Why do you think a smart coach like Dave Tippett would do that? Because he knows that Russell is actually really good at defending and he trusts him to do that job. I mean, just look at the results: 32nd in the league with unblocked shot attempts against and 15th in the league with shots against. That tells me he was contesting every shot, so that even when he was unable to block the shot his relentless defensive efforts caused the shot to miss the net more often than league average.
And then we come to the actual goals against number, which is nothing short of spectacular. Some of that is on the goalies and some on luck, but his ability to get in front of shots and force forwards to miss the net indicates that a good part of this is on Russell himself.
As much as casual fans on this site love to hate him - even Oilers fans - he is still very much an NHL player whose skills are valued by the men that are paid to coach the greatest game on earth.
And we haven't even mentioned Kris Russell's value on the penalty kill.
https://www.capfriendly.com/forums/thread/333746&post_id=1477860