5 Forwards, 1 Goalie and a Defenseman Sitting the Bench

Defenseman (noun) – a team member who plays a defensive position, especially in hockey.

Since when do you punish your defenseman for playing his position?  Well I guess you do now and this is a phenomenon that I do not get.  Now let me explain my problem.  Recently I have seen this situation happen often.  Defender A rushes the puck/goes deep in the offensive zone, the other team breaks the puck out and Defender A half-asses his way back to his defensive zone.  Defender B plays the point and rushes to play his position and cover Defender A’s ass.  Defender B gets punished by playing less and is sometimes benched.  WTF!?  Before I continue let me say that I am not against defenseman scoring or adding some offense, I mean the goal of the game is to score more goals than the other team.  But defenseman should focus on their position first and if the opportunity presents itself than go in deep or rush the puck.  But when the puck is being rushed towards your own goalie get your ass back there and defend your net like you are supposed to.  Yeah Defender A may have a ton of points, but usually the one I watched had shit for a +/-.  Defender B did not have so much in the way of points but his +/- was close to impeccable.  All I am trying to say is that there are three positions on the ice during a game of hockey offense, defense, and the goalie.  It should be kept that way unless you want a shitty season.  In that case go ahead and put five forwards on the ice.  Actually I guess this wouldn’t be a problem if your team was that much more talented than the competition but otherwise coaches should go back to the way hockey was started and have the offense produce most of the points and have the defenseman defend their net and goalie.