Hockey Hall of Fame Defenceman & NHL on Prime Analyst Chris Pronger (10/23/26)

Visit Ultrashine.com. Scott Niedermeyer was an elite skater.

Quinn Hughes, Kale McCarr, elite skaters.

You could have played the game in a rocking chair.

You let the puck do the work.

That's, you know, Evan Bouchard, and I'm not saying he's a poor skater, but I'm saying he recognizes how to let the puck do the work.

And I think it's awesome that you're calling him a superstar because if anybody would know a defenseman of that caliber, it might be a guy like you, Chris, who for probably 15 years was the top three defenseman in the world.

That's about the nicest thing I've ever said to you.

Well, thank you.

And by the way, it's the evolution of his game to get to superstar status in point production.

But it's not only the point production.

He plays a dry side of McDavid on power play, plays a lot even strength.

He's always in offensive situations.

But it's more about his well-rounded game and I think his commitment to the defensive zone.

I personally think it's not that he doesn't know how to play defense or didn't know how to play defense.

I think it was more his conviction and commitment to play that end of the ice as hard as he played the offensive side of the offensive zone versus the defensive zone.

I think, like everybody, we all have our learning curve.

We all mature into our games and our style and how we play the game and The way that he plays and the patience that he has with the puck and his ability to create lanes and sauce pucks here and there and really control the play with his feet to a certain extent, not in the Quinn Hughes, Cale McCard, Scott Niemar way, but in...

Moving up the ice in a way to move the defense so that he can get Connor McDavid in open ice or Leon Dreisaitl or hit Zach Hyman at the far line or what have you, that's vision, that's IQ, that's ability that a lot of defensemen, frankly, just don't have.

And now he's putting all the pieces together.

through his commitment and willingness to play at both ends of the ice at a much higher level.

So when you have that happening and you have the start that these other two guys have had, it's a recipe for success.