I would argue Blackwood completely deserved the praise and his numerous injuries are what derailed his career.
Posters were saying Ty Smith was going to be a first pair defenseman. Defensemen aren’t the easiest to judge either.
I like Casey, love Grits, and have no problem with the current order. They’ll be prospects next year, they’ll get moved up then.
I posted the old polls, if you think this wrong you should see how hilariously off the old polls are.
I think Ty Smith's deficiencies were evident very early on and many here noticed the slow footedness as soon as he was faced with real NHL speed in his first preseason.
If Casey is going to have problems it'll be related to size and handling big NHL forwards along the boards and around the net...beyond his size limitations, he has all the talent to be an NHL defender I believe.
But still 5'9 -161 lbs is limiting.
Worst case scenario for Casey is he just won't be able to handle the size and strength in the NHL and he'll be a super star in the AHL before heading to Europe. But even with that I think he's a significantly better prospect than Ty Smith.
Be nice if he could figure out a way to get another 20lbs on....not sure if it's possible on his small frame though.