Quoting: GMs
We watch the games, we went to the SCF and Chiarot wasn’t bad at all. Edmundson is the most steady dman, he doesn’t have bad games. Petry was ok, same for Weber. Chiarot & Edmundson stood out. Chiarot and Romanov are our best dman this year despite is stats, MTL are just garbage overall. No forwards who can play defense outside Lehkonen, every dman were lost in their own zone with Ducharme, goaltender have been atrocious recently (since Allen is out)
I can in general understand where you come from, for a fan a big body stay at home D-man sounds like a secure piece worth keeping unless the return for him in a trade is solid. I myself think this way with Esa Lindell, who plays somewhat similar role as Chiarot does. Eating minutes, eating the pucks, being the first man out there to help the goalie do his job. His metrics aren't really that impressive either due to his poor offensive abilities, but I still like him. Especially in the playoffs, that kind of players are very valuable for us. I recall back in 2019 when we dropped against Blues in the second round after that Game 7, our coach Montgomery said that Lindell was our best player in that series since he could rely on him in basically under any situation there was. Which also ultimately lead him to get a bloated contract for a defensive 2nd pair D-man.
The thing is, despite his play style having some value for us, I'm not here going to say that Lindell is worth a king's ransom. His numbers are relatively meh, and he is a bit overpaid for what he ultimately brings. However, Chiarot's numbers are and have consistently been MUCH worse than Lindell's are. Plus he's three years older than Lindell is.
Now I know valuating assets is a bit subjective, but why does my evaluation in Lindell's value differ so much from Habs fans valuation on Chiarot, who is objectively the worse player here in basically all metrics, except maybe his contract at $3,5M is more reasonable for what the guy brings (because if he was near $6M he'd probably have the worst contract in the entire league). Do you guys have an actual own opinion on him, or do you just go by the insider rumors and hope for the best - like what happened with Toffoli just recently?