Francois Bouchard

Atlas

Registered User
Sep 7, 2004
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So how good is this Bouchard kid? He's done everything you could ask from a prospect in the year since he's been drafted. Is he gonna make it to the NHL? If so, what can we expect from him?
 

Freaky Habs Fan

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Apr 26, 2003
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never saw him play but since he's in the Q, I don't know how to analyse his stats...it's so hard to predict the future of those kind of players who are playing in the Q...

He's the leading scorer, but he's probably not the best player of the league, or at least, he don't have the best NHL future of all those players...
 

Louiss

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Feb 28, 2002
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He's very talented but he is playing the game in the Q as an offensive floater...

Sure He is getting points every game but he is not always very effective in his overall game.
 

Form and Substance

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Jun 11, 2004
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Woah there, not a lot of love for PM Bouchard's kid brother. I'd rather have a guy who was extremely talented than a guy who merely plays a well-rounded game. It's not like Francois has a bad attitude either. So he floats here and there, I'm sure he'll get kicked up the arse at the next level by coaches and teammates. I think he has Marc Savard-ish offensive upside. He's bigger than his bro, though not on the same level vision wise as Pierre-Marc, it's still pretty damn good and has a knack for the net. surround him with 2-way players and he'll come out fine.
 

Langway

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Jul 7, 2006
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All Q qualifiers aside, the knocks on his game coming into the year was a lack of consistency and his play away from the puck. He's been consistent (at one point just recently putting up a 22-game point streak and he's currently leading the league in scoring) and has improved his play away from the puck. It's still not great, so he still needs to improve there and get faster but I've heard that I shouldn't be suprised if he makes the Caps next year.

Most likely, though, he's another year or two from maturing into an NHL-calibre player. He could use at least a year in Hershey to continue to adapt his game and evolve as a player.
 

CapGoodie

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Feb 19, 2007
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I don't have a ton of exposure to FB, but from a handful of games on the tube, one game in person, and the ADT challenge performance (where I would guess he played his worst hockey this season) however....

I'd disagree with getting on Bouchard for poor play away from the puck. He's not a defense first kinda player but his head is into it and he comes up with timely stick lifts, getting himself in a dangerous passing lanes, etc. More importantly he's pro-thinking offensive player - he doesn't throw a lot of dangerous drop passes, make one too many moves in vulnerable places, etc. In a nutshell, what impresses me most is that he's not racking up that many points by hot-dogging (without any two-way regard the way many Q' scoring champs have done before). Not that he doesn't turn the puck over, but he's not an irresponsible offensive player and many Q' scorers are. Most of what he's accomplished looks very transferable to the NHL IMHO.

Skating is far from explosive, but still well above average for the Q' itself. He's grown a lot in the past year+ too so in tune with everything else - I expect he'll keep showing a lot of improvement in that area as he gets use to his frame.

BTW, Bouchard and Hooper (his centre) were both challenging for tops in the 'Q points. Then Bouchard started playing with Breault as his centre and helped pull Breault into the top 30 scorers in the Q' (and he was way down there pre-Bouchard). Meanwhile Hooper kind of stalled without Bouchard, though he seems to have picked it up again (and I'm not certain of who is playing with who right this moment). Obviously I don't see a lot of games so I could be over-generalizing the change in the line-up but that's the situation as it appears to me.

The only other player in the 'Q forward I'd rather have as a prospect than Bouchard right now is Giroux, and that includes the 07's Espo and Voracek.

Sadly I don't think we have a lot of English speaking Drakkar fans around to give their day-to-day views on Bouchard.
 

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