Quoting: Riddick19
Colorado won the Cup with Sammy Girard on their defense who is 5'10 180 pounds... You can't fall into that copycat mentality because if you do you're always chasing. I mean Torey Krug was a part of the Bruins Stanley Cup Final team for the Bruins... If you can skate and move the puck in the league you are useful. If you're big and slow, you become obsolte pretty quickly. Buty I agree you need size on defense but you need every defenseman to be big and physical.
Correct me if I'm wrong, but Girard was injured for the latter part of the playoffs (guess he got injured from all the physicality). I'll also point out that I've seen many ACGMs from Colorado fans trading him away.
Did Krug win the Cup with Boston in those Finals? Did Boston want to keep him? Did his current team try to trade him?
As I mentioned, you also need skill. You can't just be a pylon (big and slow, as you put it). But if you're big and some some skill, odds are a GM will sign you over someone that's short with slightly better skill. You can't teach big, as they say. If you're short, you need to be that much better than the next guy. You need to be really , really good. Is Brannstrom elite offensively? Before Sanderson, he went a whole season without a goal, including some top pairing time and PP1 time when Chabotnwas injured. Even last year, Hamonic had more goals and assists.
I got nothing against Brannstrom. He's turned me into a fan. He has skill. As a sub-6' person myself, I commend him for his effort. He's never been hesitant to take a hit. But we see it at the draft (shortest person Sens drafted this draft was 6'2", I think, or look at MTL's Lane Hutson), we see it brought up by analysts every playoffs, and we see it in roster construction across the league: size matters.
If it didn't, then surely a team would have acquired Brannstrom by now. Sens aren't exactly falling over themselves to retain him long-term. A decent offer probably gets him.