How has he played in the AHL so far? Anyone see a future top line winger in Nikita?
He's been injured a lot. Has scored 3 goals since his return.
I don't see a future top line anything in anyone while Lefebvre and Therrien are our coaches.. so, no.
I've consider this year a write off for Scherbak, although I still don't get the move to center after returning from injury but we'll see if that holds long term or not as it would be interesting. Scherbak started the year ok with 3 pts in the first 7 games and then got injured. It wasn't bad when you consider he was injured in the off-season and didn't look like his skating was at 100% after the knee injury. Plus it didn't help that his line of DLR Dumont Scherbak was terrible. Neither DLR or Dumont showed much of anything in the way of offense.
Then he returns from injury 3 weeks later and gets injured in his first game back. After then missing just over 4 weeks he was back. Since then he's played 11 games, learned a new position and picked up 4 pts 3 of which were goals. He's shown some flashes of high skill with passes that his teammates couldn't convert. All that while the rest of the league was in mid-season form and he missed half the season and a limited off-season. For now we'll just have to see what he does the rest of the year, at least now he's getting quality ice time and good experience.
While he doesn't look out of place and he is a great passer, I think they play him center to help his 200ft game. He looks more implicated overall and I think it will help him developed a more responsible game.
Not worried about Scherbie the guy took a lot of weight during the offseason and maybe not the right way and his game was impacted and injuries happened.. After next year we will have a lot better representation of Scherbak's potential. Do we even remember Galchenyuk was quite poor with Sarnia after his knee injury? He did take quite some time to get back on track and that was JUNIOR hockey.
...Scherbak stays healthy and finally shows his solid top 6 potential (within a year or two). At least...this is what I'm hoping for.
Latest update (just found out about this!?):
Scherbak is a CENTER now??!!!
(Lefebvre's decision? or Habs' management's decision?).
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I see. The master plan is to have Sherbak center galchenyuk and mccarron someday...!
It's easier to start confusing him at the minor level so when he reach the NHL and Therrien inefficiently use him he will be used to it already. I think that's the logic behind it.I see. The master plan is to have Sherbak center galchenyuk and mccarron someday...!
He is being tried out as a center, so who know. Too early to tell. Call back in 30 games.
Habs are trying everything and anything to find an offensive center
Except developing the one they have at the NHL level
I'd like to see how he does on Mccarron's wing. It'd be nice to call them up at the same time and stick them together. Plus, they're both underrated playmakers who have great shots so I could see this working out pretty well.