[Chief Rum]

Sure thing, guys.

Todd Simpson has the tough pedigree you excpect from a stay at home defensman who leans on a veteran career and associated savvy. He doesn't back down from the other toughs, he knows how to play dirty if he needs to, and he has a good functional understanding of defense and where he needs to be. He's also big and uses that size to block shots.

Now the bad, and the reasons I was deliriously happy to see him go. Guys, he wasn't even going to make the Yotes top six, you realize that? He only went to us in the waiver draft, because Carney broke his foot in the last exhibition game (setting off an endless stream of defense injuries that have kept Simpson in the lineup the whole season).

Anaheim's defense has been plagued by the horribly ill-advised turnovers at just the wrong time this year. Simpson was Exhibit A in why this was. The guy is a horrible passer out of the zone. I mean, really frickin' bad. And he can't skate out well either. He's too slow to beat an even mediocre forechecking forward, and his stickhandling is subpar. Speaking of his slowness, he also can't keep up with quick forwards (in fact, they make him look like a statue). He can get by doing the crease-clearing stuff, but as part of a moving defensive system, let's just say not all the parts are moving with him on the ice. This also causes him to make some dumb penalties, which isn't toughness but him trying to save his own ass.

He also contributes very little on offense. His slapshot isn't very good, and as noted neither is his passing ability. He checks good, and every now and then he steps forward and acts like a big forward (good, because he's good at that grunt forward type of thing; bad, because if he does it and it doesn't work, the other team practically has a full power play before he can get back to the defensive zone).

As I mentioned in another hockey thread, I went to the Kings-Ducks game last week. The Kings won in overtime because Simpson tried to skate a puck out on the right. He could have dumped it to the defensman on the left (I think it was Havelid, too, a much better puck-moving blueliner), but instead Simpson skated up on a forechecking Jozef Stumpel at the blueline instead and seemed to be trying to pass it forward to center ice. Instead, Stumpel poke-checked the poke away, got to it along the line, and fed a center-ice flying Joe Corvo, who blasted the winning score over Martin Gerber's shoulder before Gerbs likely knew that Simpson had turned the puck over.

And that was the fourth or fifth stupid turnover I saw Simpson make that night (although this was the only one that got the Kings a score).

I am extremely satisfied to see this guy gone and amazed we got a guy who seems able to put a point every two games for him (heck, this Russian winger is even relatively young at 24).

Ottawa loses a lot more in actual defensive skill and athleticism and speed than they make up for by adding Simpson's grit and savvy.

CR