It's kind of habit at this point -- there are definitely people sticking up for his performance last night.
You might be referring to my post. First of all, you might notice that nowhere do I say that we were deeper, or better. But that aside:
Commodore
Hedican
Kaberle
Ward
Wallin
Wesley
Hutchinson
Tverdovsky
Babchuk
All 9 of those defensemen played 20+ regular season games for Carolina last year. #10 on the depth chart was Chris Hajt, who with only 6 career NHL games would have been indeed scary to see.
This year's top 9:
Commodore
Hedican
Kaberle (maybe in January)
Wesley
Gleason
Wallin
Hutchinson
Babchuk
Tanabe
And #10 on the depth chart this year is Derrick Walser, who I would not mind at all seeing in red this year. 82 career NHL games and not a terrible player, especially offensively.