The entire Blades team struggled out of the gate this season. They literally crashed and burned in front of the cameras on the Road to Memorial Cup documentary. Sutter's struggles paralleled his team, he was bumped down the line combos. Sutter's production was anemic for the first half of the season and it cost him an invite to the WJ selection camp.
Since the new year, Sutter has turned a page. He is scoring more and playing more consistent. The Blades are on an 18-game winning streak and he is big part of that. He has scored a couple goals coming out of the penalty box, go figure. He is not completely lacking offensive skills. He is not being used for scoring and he does not create offense on his own, needs linemates (which they tried at start of year and it didn't work)
Watching him live, he is a very busy player. Always chipping away at guys and finishing his checks. There are few shifts when he isn't trying to agitate the opponent after the whistle. Just a really feisty player. He drops the mitts a lot and fights whoever. I have never seen him decline a fight and he almost always initiates. He is very good on face-offs. Handles most D zone draws late in the game. I don't know what his faceoff % is but he is very very good at this aspect.
Sutter is now locked into the checking line/shutdown role by Molleken. I don't recall Sutter getting any PP time at all this year. Molleken also sends him out against other team's top 6 so it's not as though guy gets soft minutes. Sutter is a good player but seems to be closer to Brett Sutter than he is to Brandon Sutter.
I agree with the suggestion that we should not draft these type of guys in the 2nd round and focus on skill guys but Sutter's production last year was really impressive and, as it turns out, deceptive.
I think he gets signed to ELC after the Memorial Cup.