2010 NHL Draft: Little impact for the Colorado Avalanche from 2010 draft class

[DarioinDenver]

Hard to be too critical of the Hishon draft pick after seeing what the back end of that draft has done. There are a lot of misses there.

I thought the Bournival trade was a good risk for both Montreal and Colorado at the time Colorado came off a playoff year w/ a very leaky defense.

The minute I saw Silas at camp I knew the Avs were reaching. The guy skated with his knees bend inward like he had to use the bathroom. He had fundamental skating problems from the get go.

 

[Rumplesnipeskin]

My first reaction upon reading this article was that we really will know in 1-2 more years how good the draft was. If Hishon becomes an NHL-er like I believe he can, and Pickard becomes even a solid backup (neither of which is farfetched), then I believe the draft ends up about average. That being said, the misses in the second half of the draft were definitely backwards K's.

 

[Foppa2118]

Is 13 games all it takes these days to make a guy a capable NHLer?

I don't think the 2010 draft was horrible. Maybe an average draft but the Avs swung wildly for the fences and missed out.

Er….poise under pressure? Hockey IQ? Kind of a stretch to make that call after 16 NHL games, no?

The one thing I did notice about Hishon in his 13 games last year, is how very tiny he really is. He looks almost Gaudreau small compared to the other players on the ice.

16 NHL games may be too little to call a guy's career in the NHL, but I'm more comparing him to Hensick. I think he has shown me enough personally to see him as a more capable NHLer than Hensick ever did.

16 NHL games, plus the games I saw of him for Owen Sound is enough for me to see that he has better hockey intelligence, and poise than Hensick. The biggest thing for me was seeing how composed he was stepping into the playoffs last year for his first NHL games, especially his nice assist in the game 7 pressure cooker. That kind of thing isn't usually a fluke. He had every reason to just be happy with finally playing in the NHL, and get a bit overwhelmed by the intensity of the playoffs by just playing a simple game in his very limited ice time, but he kept getting better and better and was trying to make plays.

Even watching him in interviews prior to it, he was smiling a bit and obviously happy, but very even keeled, and not rattled at all by the moment because he's got that gamers mentality.

I always got the sense that Hensick never got a fair shake due to his size. He was also not great along the boards, but his other skills, particularly his poise with the puck and passing were actually pretty solid from what I remember.

Hensick had good skills but he rushed plays more than Hishon does IMO. It's that extra little x factor.

He got frustrated when things didn't work out with his skills, and had more of a straight forward skill based game, where as Hishon has more creativity in his game because IMO he can see the ice better, and think the game a little quicker at the high pace of the NHL.

Also, Joey has shown on and off the ice a determination to fight through things that don't go exactly as planned, and play a more rounded style when his coach asks him to. If Hensick had shown some of that he might have stuck in the NHL.

They both have to battle the same hurdles size wise with NHLers, but these things will help Hishon from being just another smaller skill player if he can continue to display them consistently, and take advantage of every opportunity he has without relaxing. I think Hensick relaxed just a little bit. So did Sgarbossa. They looked flashy to start, then stagnated, then regressed big time.