5mn Major said:Is he a better prospect than EJ?
Rabid Husky said:Only thing I'll say to that is Kessel had over half his points and over half his goals on the PP when he DID play with Potulny and Irmen.
18 goals-10PP 51 points-27PP
Less than half of Toews points were on the PP
22 goals-9PP 39 points 15PP
Jon Prescription said:I think 15-20 goals for Toews is shorting him quite a bit. I think 35 goals per year isn't out of the question at all.
MN_Gopher said:Yeah top 15-25 in scoring and an all star. Or even all NHL. Being that he what he lacks in pure points he makes up i nthe other areas of the game that are just as important.
Thats rarely the case, most drafts have at least one player picked after the 1st overal thats in the same league if not a million times better. This is a pretty rash comment IMO. Toews, out of all the young players I saw this year, was by far the one that impressed me the most character wise and on ice maturity wise. He's a special player and the team that gets him will be very pleased. I can see him having success as early as his first NHL year. Of course, that wouldnt mean a lot of points, just that he wouldnt look out of place a la Bergeron. Both players are similar and that type gets underrated a lot over here. IMO, the best kinds of players(the Bergeron's, Brindamours).Jon Prescription said:No. Not in his league.
No one in the draft is in EJ's league, IMO.
MN_Gopher said:I think stats like this is where Toews gets underated or overrated. If you take PP points less regular points you have Thorton at 74, Ovechkin at 54, Staal at 70, Illya at 42 and Justin williams at 51. Justin Williams is not an equal scorer as Illya Kovalchuk. But is you want to manipulate numbers then i guess they are. But i am not buying that.
So you have Kessel lovers, like me, saying(see above) and then people go hmmmm. Maybe Toews is not as good as Kessel. But this is where it gets tricky. Toews may be just as or may turn out to be more valuable. He plays a very smart game. I am sure his ratio to scoring vs give aways is a lot less than Kessels. Is better on D. And never hurts his team with any actions. So then it swings the other way. Toews is well rounded and Kessel is one dimensional. Well Kessel does not really hurt his team either. If you look at +/- he is just fine.
Basically Toews gets compared mostly to Kessel both being in the same conference. But they are two complitly different players. And bring two opposite styles to the game. So if you have scewed vision you can see Toews over or underrated.
As far as scoring for Toews goes. He can score. But he is too smart to risk a smart play for a chance at scoring. To me thats a great attribute to have. At his peak or what i see it as. A top 15-20 guy scoring and 1st-2nd team all NHL.
He has a different style but the same type of value. His hand skills and offensive sense are way under-rated. If you could take Vinny Lecavalier's hands and transplant them on Trevor Linden you would get Toews. IMO he is held back by some very correctable skating flaws and when he cleans them up he'll be an absolute beast.jcpenny said:Toews=Patrice Bergeron
King Henry I said:Toews is underrated around here because people don't value defense in prospects. It's the same reason why people here would prefer Jiri Hudler, who is no safe bet at all to become an NHL contributor at all, over somebody like Kyle Chipchura who you know is going to be good for 15-20 goals and some great defensive play. All that matters is potential.
Thankfully NHL teams don't think the same way. Notice how of the top propsects after Johnson (Kessel, Mueller, Staal, etc.) the only person who you haven't seen fall in mock drafts at all is Toews. He'll be gone in the top 5.
Rabid Husky said:And the only reason I posted it was people said Kessel didn't play with the Gophers best players and still put up the points he did....yet he DID play with them on the PP all season long and that is where most of his production came from.
hawksfan50 said:Toews has ben compared to Sakic (at least on the shot) --but he's bigger and will play more ohysical--I think the downsde is a 2nd line centre like Brind'amour= very good anyway.. but the upside ia a bigger more physical and better defensively Sakic..you cannot teach a shot--his is very efficient...
No-I don't think he's under-rated at all --he's probably more consistently #3 on most lists (he's #2 on mine and Backstromis #3 on mine) ..rather KESSELL is over-rated (though he's dropped to #4 or #5 on some scouting lists) --but on this board,Kessel is over-rated...
Kessel got just over half his points on the PP last season --10 of his 18 g came on the PP and 17 of his 33a were on the PP--yet he only took 15.6% of Minnesota's shots on the PP --his PP shooting % was better than the Minnesota average shooting % on the PP (his: 15.6%,the team avg =13.2%) so not spectaularly better than "average"--AND his shooting % overall wasonl;y 9.9% ...when you subtract his shooting on the PP,his shooting % the rest of the time WAS ONLY
6.84% !!!!
The idea that Kessel is a GREAT SHOOTER is BOGUS!
I know Toews only had 9PPg of his 22 goals --I suspect he got less minutes all year on ND's PP unit than Kessel got on Minnesota's PP unit...but Toews overall shooting % was glaringly good at 21.6% (I don't know what his PP shooting % was)
--but if he got 13 of his 22 goals not on the PP with that kind of overall shooting %--I suspect he would have had lots more PP goals and even assists if he would have had Kessel amount of time on the PP...plus consider that Toews accclerated in the latter part of the season once hewasmoved from wing to centre--where he should play because he ALSO is a better face-off man than Kessel (55.7% FO win
percentage to Kessel's 51.6%).
No--Kessel is over-rated ..Toews is where he should be on most lists #2 or #3 overall.
hawksfan50 said:Toews has ben compared to Sakic (at least on the shot) --but he's bigger and will play more ohysical--I think the downsde is a 2nd line centre like Brind'amour= very good anyway.. but the upside ia a bigger more physical and better defensively Sakic..you cannot teach a shot--his is very efficient...
No-I don't think he's under-rated at all --he's probably more consistently #3 on most lists (he's #2 on mine and Backstromis #3 on mine) ..rather KESSELL is over-rated (though he's dropped to #4 or #5 on some scouting lists) --but on this board,Kessel is over-rated...
Kessel got just over half his points on the PP last season --10 of his 18 g came on the PP and 17 of his 33a were on the PP--yet he only took 15.6% of Minnesota's shots on the PP --his PP shooting % was better than the Minnesota average shooting % on the PP (his: 15.6%,the team avg =13.2%) so not spectaularly better than "average"--AND his shooting % overall wasonl;y 9.9% ...when you subtract his shooting on the PP,his shooting % the rest of the time WAS ONLY
6.84% !!!!
The idea that Kessel is a GREAT SHOOTER is BOGUS!
I know Toews only had 9PPg of his 22 goals --I suspect he got less minutes all year on ND's PP unit than Kessel got on Minnesota's PP unit...but Toews overall shooting % was glaringly good at 21.6% (I don't know what his PP shooting % was)
--but if he got 13 of his 22 goals not on the PP with that kind of overall shooting %--I suspect he would have had lots more PP goals and even assists if he would have had Kessel amount of time on the PP...plus consider that Toews accclerated in the latter part of the season once hewasmoved from wing to centre--where he should play because he ALSO is a better face-off man than Kessel (55.7% FO win
percentage to Kessel's 51.6%).
No--Kessel is over-rated ..Toews is where he should be on most lists #2 or #3 overall.
MN_Gopher said:Have you seen both players shoot the puck? Live? So Tood White is a better shooting than Marina Gabork because of pcts. Ah so Todd White is the better shooter? Good shooters sometimes have low pct becasue they can fire it from anywhere. But i rarely hear a coach say getting the puck on net is not what we wanted.
southpaw said:for the gophers, that's what worked. most of the time, kessel would take a shot and potulny would be standing just to the goalie's left and throw down a rebound.
5mn Major said:Kessel was actually tied for second on the team in scoring after Hobey Baker finalist Potulny...when looking only at 5 v 5 play (this playing with another freshman and a sophmore who had zero goals the prior year).