This is something I had thought about recently: when teams have a player who can feasibly be either a forward or D, it seems most teams will gravitate to putting that player on D unless their a roster construction reason for not doing so. Positional versatility is kinda rare in hockey and it isn’t as valuable as in other sports, so it is interesting to see the ideas behind moving guys around
In addition to Burns just being a better defenseman than a forward, I think one of the big things here is handededness. If you have a guy who can be a really good RHD, there's more value in keeping him on defense given how hard it is to find good RHD
i was thinking about this multiple times during the ekarlsson years.
move burns to frwd.
pete dboar said no
This is something I had thought about recently: when teams have a player who can feasibly be either a forward or D, it seems most teams will gravitate to putting that player on D unless their a roster construction reason for not doing so. Positional versatility is kinda rare in hockey and it isn’t as valuable as in other sports, so it is interesting to see the ideas behind moving guys around
In addition to Burns just being a better defenseman than a forward, I think one of the big things here is handededness. If you have a guy who can be a really good RHD, there's more value in keeping him on defense given how hard it is to find good RHD