Joined: Jul. 2018
Posts: 349
Likes: 246
Probably the toughest signing to evaluate. Price and term for the player are great, he is a legitimate top 4 D, and his injury last year really showed how valuable he was to the Islanders D. He ticks a lot of boxes. Analytics show he is very good at suppressing shots, but he also gets a decent amount of appreciation from the more traditional "eye test" crowd. His only real knocks were that he was injured last year, and he was drafted high and was billed as a more offensive threat, which he never really panned out to be. This lead him to be a little underrated. I thought of all the D signed this year to multi-year deals, he or Pateryn, might prove to be the best value and actually live up to their contracts.
The puzzling part is whether or not it's a good investment for Carolina. They are a team that needed to add offense and so far they added a top pairing D, and another 2nd pairing D, and traded away a 23 year old winger, and seem intent on trading away their best goal scorer.
Maybe they get a good player for Faulk, but it's not like he brings back a #1C, elite young winger, or top tier forward prospect. Offense is hard to add, and so far they haven't really added any.