EHM The Blue Line

Since I have already started a long thread about franchise goalies, what about some discussion about elite defensemen?

Am I the only one that thinks that elite franchise defensemen like Pronger, Phaneuf, Pitkanen, Bouwmeester, etc don't have near the same impact in the game as they do in real life. In real life, a guy like Pronger is every bit as valuable to his team as a Kovalchuk for example.

I think part of the issue is that there are so many good role d-men that there isn't all that much need to have a dominant all-around guy. There are plenty of great cheap stay at home d-men like Morrisonn, Clymer, Matvichuk, Hill, Vaannen (sp), Kloueck, etc, etc that you can have for generally less than 1.5 M/year. Get 3-4 of those and 1-2 pure offensive type d-men and you can just play your offensive d-men in the bottom 2 pairs and on the PP only and the stay at home guys for the PK and most of the even strength. Doing that, you can spend less than 10 M on your entire defense. I think it kind of makes paying huge amounts of money to Pronger, Chara, etc. really hard to justify.

In my Maple Leafs game I had a pretty descent cheap defence like you say, with guys like :

Steve Eminger
Carlo Colaiacovo
Robyn Regehr
Brad Stuart
Marc Staal

I won the Presidents Cup two years in a row, but allways went out in the playoffs - getting to the Conference Final once. I scored a lot of goals but also was scored a lot against.

I then added Scott Niedermayer as an FA at 6M pr. season, and won the Cup the same year. He really helped my powerplay as well as my overall defence.

jdh79 wrote: I think part of the issue is that there are so many good role d-men that there isn't all that much need to have a dominant all-around guy...I think it kind of makes paying huge amounts of money to Pronger, Chara, etc. really hard to justify.

I see the rational behind this. However, I think there are two sides to every question. IMHO, the balance between offense and defence is a very important thing, particularly when it matters most - playoffs, rivals etc.
In most cases, you need excellence to succeed (on both sides of the ice). I barely can imagine Ducks winning the Cup without Scott Niedermayer. In addition, top opposition forwards are tending to accelerate their game significally coming playoff times. Battling for the Conference title, who do you prefer to play against Kovalchuk - Pronger or Hill? Franchise defencemen can consolidate the whole defense and when it matters most. I suggest having at least one top tier guy to strengthen and lead your defense. Personally I have two of them, playing on my 1st and 2nd defensive unit respectively and their big contracts pay off handsomely.

I double CrockerNHL on that. Sure you can have a brilliant regular season with only depth guys, or barely core guys. But who cares about the regular season? It's just the waram-up for the real battle: the playoffs! And you can't go far with core/depth only in the playoffs. You need impact players, or face one more year without the Cup...