Why the heck is everyone against Sykora?

[Triumph]

I would put him in the top 1/3 of defensive forwards. He's about as good as Bates, Blake, and Marchant. He did nothing in the last 2 rounds of the 2003 playoffs as Ottawa's forwards skated circles around him, basically it was Brodeur saving the bacon in game 7. He also was terrible against Philly last year and Carolina in 2002. One of the reasons was because he was asked to do too much, we needed him to contribite offensively and he couldn't. We don't need him to contribute offensively this year...if he does, great, if he doesn't, no big deal.

and the role he plays in doesn't make or break the team either way. I mean, you could have Nik Sundstrom doing the same thing and we'd still be succesful. You need to stop overrating him, sure he does a nice job but there are those who do more.

Niklas Sundstrom has been a healthy scratch quite often in Montreal. You still think it's 2001, don't you? I mean, honestly - there's a reason why John Madden hasn't been waived, and it's because he is way more valuable than Shawn Bates or Todd Marchant (who was effectively waived). Jason Blake isn't in a shutdown role anymore (if he ever was).

The role he plays does make or break the team. If the Devils don't shut down the top line of other teams, they go from a winning team to a losing team. He often plays more minutes than all our other forwards and was even this year.