RAFI BOMB
Registered User
- May 11, 2016
- 7,389
- 7,646
I am less sure about Loheit as I haven't watched much of his play at the NCAA level but he did show some decent skill in dev camp.I think that begs the question for Loheit and Novak - if they’re good enough to recieve ELC’s - why can’t they produce in the NCAA?
Novak has shown that ability. He was producing at Bentley but that was in the AHA so he transferred to Northeastern where he would face tougher competition in Hockey East. I watched a fair amount of his play at Northeastern last season and he was generating a lot of quality chances but he was just snakebitten. He was held pointless for the first nine games of the season but that wasn't a reflection of his play. He was generating, it just wasn't going in. That is why he ended up having back to back 2 goal games in his 10th and 11th game of the season.
Novak was asked to take on a lot of different roles. At the start of the season he was manning the point on the powerplay and against his former team he was looking like Ovechkin out there. He could have had a ton of points that game. But Northeastern had a fairly deep team and as a transfer from the AHA he was often given more of a depth role with a lot of defensive responsibilities. Even then he generated scoring chances and produced points shorthanded or when the opposing team pulled their goalie and had an extra man on the ice. He reminded me a lot of Nick Paul in the type of game he was playing. They sometimes played him at center and other times at wing. There were a few players on Northeastern that were snekebitten early on so sometimes other players weren't converting on his quality passes.
I think he was going through a bit of an adjustment going from the AHA to Hockey East and his new team was asking him to take different roles and moving him around a lot, and that other players on his new team were also struggling for whatever reason that it impacted his overall production. From what I saw, he was doing a lot of good stuff with his play and that his production would have been significantly higher with a bit of luck. I also think he has a lot of good tools that could lead to production at a higher level such as his shot.