Funny you say you can shelter the left side but who did Pietrangelo ever shelter? He's always had some decent partners on the left and then we had to go out and get him a #1 LD in Jbo. He was a good player but f*** sake, he was not some god like you crazies are making him out to be.
We "had" to get him a #1 partner in J-Bo in the sense that he "only" finished 4th in Norris voting, the team "only" allowed the fewest shots in the league, and the team "only" allowed the fewest goals in the league in the season before the Bo acquisition. Petro played 24:44 a night, which was over 3 minutes a night more than the 2nd highest (Shatty) and over 4 minutes a night more than the most-used LD (Jax, who was Shatty's year-long partner). Petro's most common partner was Carlo Colaiacovo and his 2nd most common partner was Kent Huskins. He played a whopping 94 minutes with a 22 year old Ian Cole, 93 minutes with Shatty, and 85 minutes with Jax.
It is beyond asinine to pretend that Petro didn't drag around Carlo in 2011/12 and/or that the performance of the top pair wasn't exceptional before we went out and acquired Bo. We saw an opportunity to upgrade a position of weakness for a reasonable cost and then lock that player up for several years at a reasonable cap number when we had the flexibility to do so.
Petro and Bo were a longstanding pair, staying connected at the hip (and playing exceptionally well) until 2017/18 when injuries (and the emergence of Parayko) led to Petro getting an assortment of partners again.
He finished 9th in Norris voting in 2017/18. His most frequent partner was Joel Edmundsson, followed by Carl Gunnarsson. Petro finished with 54 points, positive possession numbers and a +8 while playing 25:44 a night. Petro-Eddy was the team's most-used pair that season, faced by far the strongest competition of our pairs that season, skewed toward defensive usage and finished +4 together at 5 on 5. The team finished 3rd in shots against and 6th in goals against. Eddy-Petro and Gunnar-Petro was the team's top pair way, way more often than not, they performed well and the team as a while performed well offensively despite Bo only playing 35 games.
In 2018/19 his most-used partners were sophomore Dunn and Eddy. Bo and Parayko settled in as a full time pair this year and the their pair and Petro's pair faced almost identical quality of competition. In the playoffs, he played 100+ minutes with each of Eddy, Gunnar, and Dunn. The team finished 4th in shots against and 5th in goals against.
In 2019/20, his most-used partner was Faulk (who the entire fanbase agreed wasn't remotely good on the left side) and his next-most-used partner was Gunnar, who only played 36 games that year. Then you had Parayko as his 3rd most-used partner followed by Dunn. He finished 4th in Norris voting. The team was 4th in shots against and 6th in goals against. I think we had a damn good defensive personnel this season and I wouldn't say anyone was sheltering anyone. We weere just a very good defensive team.
During Petro's tenure here, we got effective top pair play with all of Colaiacovo, Gunnar, Eddy, and a young Dunn acting as the LD at various times. None of these guys were even remotely top pair caliber guys at the time they were playing with Petro. In the Cup run Eddy and Gunnar both had issues staying in the lineup, but we got top pair caliber play out of the Petro pairing regardless of who Berube dressed with him.
There are several examples of this team having a good top pair comprised of Petro and a #4 or #5 caliber D man.