MS said:
Agreed.
He's an excellent bet to be a 20-30 point 3rd/4th line guy, but has very limited upside. Good skater, hustles in all three zones, but no finish. Upside would be to develop into a guy very similar to Chris Kelly of Ottawa. Useful player, but pretty easy to find this sort of guy on the UFA market without needing to invest a high #2 pick. Past pick #50, sure ... nice guy to have in your system as long as you don't take him too high.
I wouldn't even go that far. If a player is a role player at the junior level, it is a pretty rare occasion they ever make the NHL and become a significant role player at that level. Comparing Kelly and Calla is a good way to differentiate between prospects.
Kelly in his draft year scored 36 goals and 77 points. He was regarded as a scorer as a prospect, and only in the last few years has he re-invented himself into a two-way guy. But he definitely has some skill. Not enough to center a scoring line, but certainly enough to compliment some skill players and put up some points in his own right. 10 goals and 30 points as a rookie on the 4th line is pretty darn good no matter how you cut it.
Same with the likes of Peca, Fisher, Madden and McCauley. All of these guys were elite scorers in juniors or college, and to a certain extent, re-invented themselves along the way to become elite checking forwards.
And I think that's where people miss out on prospect at times. A 3rd or 4th liner checking forward is much more likely to have been a prolific scorer in junior with a great attitude, who at some point realized they weren't going to be an elite scorer in the NHL, so they went through a transition. Kelly was a smallish scorer who slipped to the third line because teams weren't quite sure he had the skills to be a scorer, but he certainly was never 'projected' to be a checking forward. But he realized that and in Bingo, became a great two-way guy, team captain, all the while still scoring at a decent pace (60 points in the AHL).
Heck, guys like Bonk and Hossa were regarded as one-dimensional offensive players and ended up being a couple of the Sens best defensive forwards by the time they were 25. In Bonk's case, he is another example of a guy who re-invented himself to a degree (he was regarded as a pure 'goal scoring dynamo' in his draft year')
So IMO, if a guy has good intangibles and was a decent two-way forward at the junior level in his draft year, but nothing more, he really isn't worth much more than a late round flyer. I know there are exceptions to this (great wheels and skills, but stuck in a role on a team so the production was limited), but I'd much rather focus on drafting skilled forwards with good character and focus on turning them into two-way players.
Even the likes of Moreau (44 goals in the OHL), Wiemer (45 goals in the WHL) and Pandolfo (ppg at Michigan) were elite scorers when drafted, and now are no more than very good checkers because of their skill level (decent, but clearly not elite). More recently, a player like Garth Murray (28 goals in his draft year) really doesn't have the skill to play a significant role in the NHL, but given he was a goal scorer in juniors, has enough talent to at least be a decent 4th liner in the NHL for a long time and perhaps get 10 goals a season a long the way.
Calla doesn't seem to fit the profile.
