Quoting: GoGuinsGo_18
Graves has been terrible dude. I still think he's a decent hockey player and I'm not a fan of trading him at his lowest value, but he literally looks lost out there. And i was a fan of the signing. Even just simple things he looks either incapable of doing or ignorant of what to do. He floats away towards the net while the opponent is cycling in our end and loses his guy in the middle of the ice. He flubs clearances or turns it over in our d zone. I think he's looked atrocious tbh...
Graves has looked, performed, and is paid, like an average 2nd pairing NHL defensemen.
His oiGF vs oiGA is a +3 at even strength with a PDO at 100.1 so it's not inflated. WTF do you want from the man?
You act like he was brought in here as a 1LD. He's not a 1LD and he was never going to be a 1LD, and he isn't paid like a 1LD either! Stop pretending you get to find a 1LD on the market at 2LD prices.
They win when he's on the ice. He doesn't put up points....who cares, that's not his job. EK an Letang are the puck movers, and the ones who are suppose to produce the spark from the backend. The pucks not suppose to, nor is the system designed to be on Graves stick.
His Corsi and FW are both roughly 50%. average while getting 58% of his starts in the D zone.
You say he turns the puck over, he's got 30 5v5 give aways all year, and 15 take aways. That's not some horrible stat.
In all situations it's 33 and 19...
That doesn't say he turns the puck over all over the place having a .5 turnover rate is actually pretty damn good.
You just have a very bias opinion of the guy and proceed to spew out garbage comments on him.
His play is absolutely fine.
Meanwhile you can look at the entire 3rd pairing and they bleed goals on the ice. Because they are a bunch of AHL level players pretending to be NHL competent.
You would rather sit around saying nothing about guys like Chad, R. POJ, Shea etc.
Look at POJ who they keep throwing on the ice, he plays 8 minutes less per night, gets no PK tine, bleeds goals and turns the puck over more. If you don't believe me take their turnovers, divide by the minutes on the ice. Remember that Graves has 120 minutes of PK to POJ 13 total on the season.
Graves has played well for what he is. An average 2nd pairing guy.
So if "Graves has been terrible dude".... well a lot of teams must have terrible 2nd pairing guys too because most of them are getting roughly the same level of play out of their 2nd pairing guys.
On top of it, what does that make the whole rotating cast of AHL defenseman the penguins have been playing in those 3rd pairing roles who keep getting switched around into positions they have no business in to hide them.
Hell almost every other team in the league manages to put their 3rd pairing in the PK.... but the penguins can't do that because their 3rd pairing is so damn bad.