Post-Game Talk: Rookie Tournament 2015

[Frank8]

Stone is elite.

 

[Cosmix]

Who are our elite forwards now?
I guess agreement on the term is required.
The way the Sens are building and drafting they are moving quickly towards having 4 good lines that can play a sound two way game. Their strength is evolving towards balanced two-way skill through out the line-up. I foresee that Paul, Lindberg, Prince and Puempel all on the team by next year. White and Chabot likely 1 to 2 years after that. Some Improvement should be expected out of Hoffman, Zib, Lazar... Maybe not much (in the way of forwards) I would consider elite but they are building a very good 4 line team. The one place I would add is a legit top 4 D vet to play 2-3 years while Chabot is getting ready to make the jump. Chiasson, Greening, Neil will all be gone off the Sens playing roster by the beginning of next year. By the time White , Gagne, and/or Chlapik are ready Smith and Michalek will be gone.

Good questions regarding who is elite now and what is the definition of elite.

My view for the purpose of this comment is a first line player who can generate offense by either high level playmaking or shooting ability while also limiting opponents' scoring by playing sound defensively with out the puck.

One definition I have seen used for "elite forwards" is "having either been top 10 in points or points per game at some point in their career, and on multiple occasions paced for 85 or more era adjusted points." But that definition was not what I had in mind when making my comment.