No, but I'd say the difference is not as many goals against as you believe. Cardboard is stronger than a sheet of paper, but a good pair of scissors cuts through both without much difficulty. That's why we keep bringing up the names themselves. Saying that Strait filling Hickey's role makes that much of a difference...sorry...I just disagree. Hamonic was there for a good part of the season and looked shaky as hell for a big chunk of the time he was in. Same with Nabby. Would it have made some difference? Sure. Enough of a difference, after factoring in no injuries for anyone else? I just highly doubt it. The D needs help to get the best out of even our good players like Hamonic and Vis. Don't forget, even with Vis, Hamonic and AMac was our top shutdown pair, charged with playing against other teams' top forwards, who tend to feast on the Isles regardless of whether they're healthy or not. That pairing was a disaster for a shutdown role this season, and was intact for plenty of it.
- UIF
Right Hamonic looked shakey...with Amac. Suddenly he was paired with de Haan and looked MUCH better and the team went on a roll. Why? because adding just one dependable dman to the mix adjusted everyone's defensive roles enough that we were able to suddenly compete.
I think people underestimate how much just adding one player on a defensive corps can change the entire complection of a team, let alone three.
