Avalanche's Barrie out to prove his defensive game is up to par
Tyson Barrie and the Colorado Avalanche were able to come to terms on a new deal, but not before the two sides went through the arbitration process.
The defenseman signed a four-year, $22-million contract before the ruling came down, and the hearing opened his eyes in terms of perceived deficiencies in his game.
"I know it's a business," Barrie said on Vancouver’s TSN 1040 on Tuesday. "It definitely wasn't the most fun process. It can be a little awkward when you're in there. You get to hear about how bad you are for a little bit (laughs), but at the end of the day it's a business. They're trying to get me as low as they can, and we're trying to tell them how good I am."
Still, Barrie - who's listed at 5-foot-10 and comes in on the smaller side among players at his position - knows he needs to keep working at his game in his own end.
"I watch a lot of video. I'm the one playing. I watch a lot of hockey, so I don't know if I'm as bad as everybody thinks defensively," he said. "But again, it's something that I'm going to continue to work on. I want to be a top defenseman in the league."
Barrie finished 2015-16 with 49 points, 10th-highest among all defensemen. His 44.55 Corsi For rating at even strength suggests he does indeed have some work to do in terms of getting the puck out of his own zone, but it can be argued that head coach Patrick Roy's system does him no favors.
This deficiency isn't lost on Barrie.
"I think that's something the coaching staff is going to have to look at really hard and try and make adjustments. We'll do our best to play within the structure that they give us, and we're going to have to - individually everybody's got to play better, to a man.
"Obviously those stats (like Corsi For) - I don't think they lie. So if we want to be better we have to be better with puck possession. I don't have the answer on how to do that, but I think we've got to figure it out."
With the new deal, Barrie is now Colorado's second-highest-paid defenseman behind only Erik Johnson.
- With h/t to Today's Slapshot