Yes I agree with all those things. He was a good reliable D man. But some were suggesting that we have down graded our defence and Im not sure we have. Drew was a good player but not an impact player like Weller and co. I guess I made the comparison because he had a very strong CV with a lot of AHL games.
I would say we have downgraded. Pedigree wise and from what I have seen so far Schiestel is a far superior player to McMonagle and Jardine. And we wanted him back, so in theory Lord thought so too during the summer.
I don’t understand why we are comparing Schiestel to Weller and Strachan. He wasn’t brought in to replace either of those. He was brought in to replace Ben Blood and play on our second/third line D. I get that Ben Blood replaced Strachan, but our needs were different by the time we signed Schiestel - we needed a bit more in terms of points and you would get more points out of Schiestel than you would Strachan. Weller was a first line D impact player, that player is now Fournier so if there’s a comparison that’s the one. But, you are talking about comparing players like 8 years apart, when we had 3 lines and a lot less imports and played out of a tent.
It’s naive to use Weller and Strachan as the yardstick to all future and current D.