Judd Zulgad

And the thing is, he's not Nicholas Lidstrom.

He's not the perfect human in the sense where defensively, I think he still makes some mistakes.

But the thing is, he recovers so well.

If he makes a mistake or he maybe whiffs on a pass, loses a puck, because there is still some of those kinks being worked out here.

you see him just immediately scamper back or reposition himself.

His stick is so quick and takes up, it seems like, multiple lanes at once.

His angling is close to what almost you get from Brodine, but he's got a little more ability there for sure.

Is he the most defensively sound defenseman in the league?

No, he's not.

He's not.

But he is very, very exceptional at it, and it's the way that he's able to go from his own zone

exit the zone either with a stretch pass or just using his feet escaping um escaping close quarters from the opposition to find space and keep driving the play forward entering the zone and same thing the quick analysis and how he reads and reads the ice in what seems like an instant there's not a lot of bad decisions there and that was something you kind of said is like if there was a stat

that somehow was tracked where it's like smart hockey plays versus dumb hockey plays, or, you know, what, is that the correct move versus not the correct move?

I bet you he would be in the upper echelon of correct decisions per game or per 60 or whatever the stat would be because he just makes the right smart, simple move.

So, so often and so consistently that when he's on the ice, there's zero words.

If they're going to get beat when he's on the ice, it's got to be because it's probably a remarkable play or he somehow was not involved.

It's just a joy to watch.

And yet, I think this might be, in terms of minutes, his latest day in terms of ice time since joining the Wilds.

So this probably felt like a day off.

He's going to be fresh as a daisy tomorrow.