Digger12
Gold Fever
My hope for Kailer is that he comes to camp in September both stronger AND faster. I know he's not likely to get much bigger.
Watching the extended highlight videos of him, what strikes me is that he's got great offensive instincts and is scrappy as heck on the forecheck, but if you watch him objectively and compare his skating to his peers he doesn't really seem to have great top end speed, especially for someone as tiny as he is.
In the highlights he doesn't really blow by guys wide or pull away from opponents on breakaways, instead he cuts into the middle or slows the play down to set up a teammate. IMO his great hockey sense and anticipation helps to gloss over the fact that's he's really not all that fast.
Which is fine at the WHL level, obviously he's shown he can make it work against that age group. My worry is that at the NHL level he might not find it so easy to find separation from players who are bigger and stronger than him, and the number of outright bad skaters is much lower.
I guess I'm just unsure so far as to what his NHL ceiling really is. He could be a great complimentary winger like an Eberle, which at his draft position is nothing but a win. But the reason Eberle became what he is was because he improved his WHL-average skating to be at least NHL-average. I really hope that Yamamoto can do the same.
Watching the extended highlight videos of him, what strikes me is that he's got great offensive instincts and is scrappy as heck on the forecheck, but if you watch him objectively and compare his skating to his peers he doesn't really seem to have great top end speed, especially for someone as tiny as he is.
In the highlights he doesn't really blow by guys wide or pull away from opponents on breakaways, instead he cuts into the middle or slows the play down to set up a teammate. IMO his great hockey sense and anticipation helps to gloss over the fact that's he's really not all that fast.
Which is fine at the WHL level, obviously he's shown he can make it work against that age group. My worry is that at the NHL level he might not find it so easy to find separation from players who are bigger and stronger than him, and the number of outright bad skaters is much lower.
I guess I'm just unsure so far as to what his NHL ceiling really is. He could be a great complimentary winger like an Eberle, which at his draft position is nothing but a win. But the reason Eberle became what he is was because he improved his WHL-average skating to be at least NHL-average. I really hope that Yamamoto can do the same.