Sens reporter contradicts himself while trying to pump Thomas Chabot's tires

Sure he has not played with partners that have made it easy, but neither did Morgan Rielly until T.J. Brodie arrived in Toronto. Rielly also played with Zaitsev and Hainsey during his developmental years and faired much better than Chabot. Part of that might be that the Leafs had a better team during his those years or maybe Rielly has just always been a better defenseman.

According to TSN's Shawn Simpson there are not many top defensemen he would take over Chabot, but Chabot needs his minutes limited, needs to tighten up his defensive play and needs a better partner and team. So does he believe that Chabot is not really a number 1 defenseman? If his minutes need to be cut and he needs a better partner/team to shelter his mistakes would that not make him more of a number 2 or 3?

Kind of a counter intuitive point made by Simpson on this one. Top defensemen should be able to play with almost anyone and adapt to the style of play required to make them and their partner better. Rielly has done it for years, including this year when playing with rookie Timothy Liljegren. A great example is Victor Hedman in Tampa. Hedman has been elite regardless of who he has played with - whether it's Erik Cernak, Jan Rutta, Anton Stralman... elite defensemen are elite no matter what.

Maybe if Melnyk was willing to pay his players when they needed new contracts Chabot would've been able to develop alongside someone like Marc Methot or even Erik Karlsson, and had better defensive forwards like Mark Stone to help out more. That's a story for another day though.