Johnny Hoxville
The Return of a Legend
The point you are making is valid, but Blandisi has not accomplished anything other than a 17 points over about 40 games.
The point you are making is valid, but Blandisi has not accomplished anything other than a 17 points over about 40 games.
My point is that NHL players more then ever and coming from later rounds. Look at us... Our three best players are an undrafted FA, and two 4th round picks...
As for first rounders. Who have we ever produced that's half decent that wasn't picked in the top 6?
I could see Mangiapane becoming a Zuccarello type player. Wouldn't pick him over guys that are much closer to being pros ie Kulak, Hickey. I'd say he's on par with Poirier although either guy could jump ahead next year.
What about Joseph Blandisi. Undrafted. Went from the colts straight to a top 6 role with NJ and he scores less than Mangiapane.
People seriously need to stop with the draft position obsession. It's why we had a scrub like Klimchuk rated at like 4 last year. Draft position means nothing. These are 18 year old kids. Trust me, I grew up playing hockey with Thomas Hickey. Draft position is overrated, especially on these boards.
He out scored Mitch Marner in the second half of the season. He had a 6 game streak with at least 3 points in every game. On a bad leg.
Emile Poirier's scoring comparables - players who were within 4 NHLe points of him in their Draft and Draft+1 Year. This doesn't include last year (Draft+2) when his production regressed.
The person that brought up draft position was someone who use it to defend him. None of the detractors (that I can see) are using draft position to justify anything.I agree to an extent for sure.
I was one to harp on draft position LAST summer with Ramus and Oliver, because at that point there literally hadn't been any hockey played since they were drafted.
Draft position doesn't matter nearly as much as people on HF want it to. I mean top ten guys that are struggling will always been seen as "just not broken out yet" like Connolly, but a players potential is more defined on how they progress.
We as a fanbase should be more aware of that than almost any team. Two 4th rounders are our best players and our captain who was in the Norris conversation last year was undrafted.
If people want to make an argument that Mangiapane is risky due to size and stature, sure. If they want to argue that it's his draft plus 2 technically, sure. But not draft position.
The person that brought up draft position was someone who use it to defend him. None of the detractors (that I can see) are using draft position to justify anything.
The Colts were a very top heavy team with 5 players close to a point per game. Even in his draft plus 2 season he wasn't able to lead the team in scoring. Poirier was able to lead his team in points by a significant margin in just his draft plus 1 season and was an all-star n the AHL in his draft plus 2 season. Poirier's struggles this past season were more playing on a bad team that couldn't score than it was him struggling. I point alot to Huska but this is another situation where it is warranted. Hathaway was gifted 1st line duties from his first game, he never lost that spot when he played poorly, he never lost his 1st PP unit time either so Poirier was relegated to being the 2nd/3rd line RW and 2nd PP unit time (and they barely played). Poirier was constantly generating chances and did so playing a more team friendly game than he had in the past.
His Draft and Draft+1 seasons are his last two QMJHL years, he wasn't yet in the AHL where his NHLe dropped.So if I roll a 6 with two dice, Poirier makes the NHL eh?
I kid I kid. Just been playing a lot of games decided by dice rolls lately.
I don't like using our players AHL stats for evaluation, because the way our organization has treated our AHL affiliate is a disorganized mess.
So you'd take Kulak or Hickey over the guy who led the NY Rangers in scoring?
The person that brought up draft position was someone who use it to defend him. None of the detractors (that I can see) are using draft position to justify anything.
The Colts were a very top heavy team with 5 players close to a point per game. Even in his draft plus 2 season he wasn't able to lead the team in scoring. Poirier was able to lead his team in points by a significant margin in just his draft plus 1 season and was an all-star n the AHL in his draft plus 2 season. Poirier's struggles this past season were more playing on a bad team that couldn't score than it was him struggling. I point alot to Huska but this is another situation where it is warranted. Hathaway was gifted 1st line duties from his first game, he never lost that spot when he played poorly, he never lost his 1st PP unit time either so Poirier was relegated to being the 2nd/3rd line RW and 2nd PP unit time (and they barely played). Poirier was constantly generating chances and did so playing a more team friendly game than he had in the past.
I've been making the argument for a while that our AHL team is hurting our development, and I don't have nearly as much first hand experience to generate that opinion. I genuinely feel that this is something we have to work on if we want to be successful in the future.
As for the draft position thing, maybe I'll have to re-read the thread, but I definitely felt like in my first read through that people were using his draft position against him (Mangiapane that is)
I think his draft position was brought up by someone defending him saying if they were drafted in the same spot Mangiapane would win easily. Then I think there was mocking
I'm just not overly impressed by finishing 2nd or 3rd in team scoring. IMO Poirier's 87 points in his draft+1 season was far more impressive than Mangiapaine's 106 points in his draft+2 season because of the quality of teammates.Fair enough, pre-coffee reading of HF rarely goes well for me.
Plus its so damn dark out I barely feel awake today.