Andreas Athanasiou

[Hammettf2b]

http://www.mlive.com/griffins/index.ssf/2015/02/griffins_notes_has_andreas_ath.html

I've always liked this kids game. He can explosive at times and with a little more seasoning, I think we will all be talking about him like we were with Nyquist.

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[Frk It]

Best 1 on 1 player in the org after Datsyuk and Tatar. Helm's speed, but with a 6'2" 200 lb frame.

Tools for days. Produces a lot for someone with a "hockey sense" knock. May be outgrowing that title a little. He seems to read Mantha very well.

 

[Flowah]

Someone mentioned him maybe getting a callup this season and now it's all I can think about. He's the one I'm looking forward to the most at this point. I love speed and he's got it in spades with a ton of skill to go with it.

 

[Konnan511]

I was hoping he's get called up to fill in for Z while he was out injured. thank Holland we have Cleary....

 

[Tatar Shots]

Best 1 on 1 player in the org after Datsyuk and Tatar. Helm's speed, but with a 6'2" 200 lb frame.

Tools for days. Produces a lot for someone with a "hockey sense" knock. May be outgrowing that title a little. He seems to read Mantha very well.

I do think this is something he has improved on in the past year. I think it began by being humbled by team Canada leaving him off the WJC roster and I think Blashill has been a great influence on him. I also think that the higher level of competition in the AHL has helped show Athanasiou the value of using his teammates. He seems to understand that he can't do it all by himself at this level and that to get the best results he has to play as a team. He's got all the tools in the world; lets hope he puts it all together and joins the Babcock fraternity of 'real-gud' players.

 

[Satrebil]

I do think this is something he has improved on in the past year. I think it began by being humbled by team Canada leaving him off the WJC roster and I think Blashill has been a great influence on him. I also think that the higher level of competition in the AHL has helped show Athanasiou the value of using his teammates. He seems to understand that he can't do it all by himself at this level and that to get the best results he has to play as a team. He's got all the tools in the world; lets hope he puts it all together and joins the Babcock fraternity of 'real-gud' players.

I'm not sure hockey IQ can be taught.

 

[mindfly]

I'm really curious how to accurately pronounce his name... different commentators say different things

 

[Tatar Shots]

I'm not sure hockey IQ can be taught.

But you can teach a player to use his teammates and not try to skate and stick handle around everyone which was the knock on Athanasiou and the reason why he dropped in the draft.

 

[Satrebil]

But you can teach a player to use his teammates and not try to skate and stick handle around everyone which was the knock on Athanasiou and the reason why he dropped in the draft.

I agree.

That's just using common sense.

 

[Flowah]

But you can teach a player to use his teammates and not try to skate and stick handle around everyone which was the knock on Athanasiou and the reason why he dropped in the draft.

We know it can be taught because Tatar learned how to do it.

 

[Satrebil]

We know it can be taught because Tatar learned how to do it.

Learned, rather than taught, I think.

Semantics, maybe.

 

[Hendricks433]

If Z is out a while it would be nice to call him up to maybe be 3rd line wing.

Tatar, Dats, Abs
Nyquist, Sheahan, Pulks
Jurco/Weiss, Helm, AA
Miller, Glendening, Weiss/Jurco

The speed of Helm and AA would be something else.

 

[Claypool]

I was hoping he's get called up to fill in for Z while he was out injured. thank Holland we have Cleary....

They've already called up Pulkkinen over using Cleary, so your roster assessment is wrong. Cleary has only been used this season in emergency situations where the team doesn't have time to call someone up from Grand Rapids. Since Z is doubtful for today and likely unable to play today or tomorrow, they won't have time to fly a prospect out cross-country to be ready to play. If Pulkinnen can play tonight they're obviously going to sit Cleary.

 

[ChadS]

I've been a huge fan of his ever since we drafted him. So much raw talent in this kid, still can't understand how he fell to the 4th round. The hockey sense issue has been way overstated, imo it was more about being selfish or over-confident in junior. Haven't seen any of that in GR this season, just solid two-way play which is probably the most impressive part of his transition to pro since he was pretty much all offense last year in Barrie.

 

[Hammettf2b]

I'm really curious how to accurately pronounce his name... different commentators say different things

ath an as ow


I've always been saying like this since his draft year. That's how they were saying it then.

 

[SimplySolace]

I'm really curious how to accurately pronounce his name... different commentators say different things

ath-ana-SEE-you

I saw a pronunciation guideline like that in an article very recently, I'll see if I can find it. I definitely know it has the emphasized "SEE" part

EDIT: Can't find the article, but here's a prospects report from the Wings' youtube on him https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=hqD1fjE0YK8

EDIT2: Here's a WIIM article that has it best http://www.wingingitinmotown.com/2014/12/14/7388983/andreas-athanasiou-the-complete-package

Ath-ehn-uh-SEE-you

 

[snailderby]

He pronounces it himself at 0:05 of this video:

 

[Unfriendly Ghost]

I don't think that article is very fair to Mantha.

 

[redwingsphan]

He pronounces it himself at 0:05 of this video:

Funny that the narrator says it wrong the whole time. And how exactly does a game where you can't use your hands help hand eye skills?

 

[SimplySolace]

I don't think that article is very fair to Mantha.

The WIIM one? It's from December though.

 

[RedWingsfan55]

I saw him play this weekend on Saturday and he was the best player out there by far. Everyone and I mean everyone looked slow and sloppy(they did play Friday).

AA was really fast and making plays all night. Truly impressive.

 

[Unfriendly Ghost]

The WIIM one? It's from December though.

The MLive one. It basically holds AA's success against Mantha. Like every player should have an identical development curve or something.

AA is having more success because he plays a Blashill-friendly game on a Griffins team with virtually zero scoring depth, which means he gets a ton of opportunities. Mantha is having less success because 1) he played with scrubs for the first 20 games (which is somehow spun into being a pro-AA point, since because Mantha has only been successful with AA, it must be solely because of AA) and 2) because he doesn't play the game Blashill wants him to, which means he sees drastically reduced icetime.

It ignores the fact that AA benefits from playing with Mantha and also that Mantha has a massively higher ceiling than AA. It might as well be a Fox News-style highly biased opinion piece.

 

[SimplySolace]

The MLive one. It basically holds AA's success against Mantha. Like every player should have an identical development curve or something.

AA is having more success because he plays a Blashill-friendly game on a Griffins team with virtually zero scoring depth, which means he gets a ton of opportunities. Mantha is having less success because 1) he played with scrubs for the first 20 games (which is somehow spun into being a pro-AA point, since because Mantha has only been successful with AA, it must be solely because of AA) and 2) because he doesn't play the game Blashill wants him to, which means he sees drastically reduced icetime.

It ignores the fact that AA benefits from playing with Mantha and also that Mantha has a massively higher ceiling than AA. It might as well be a Fox News-style highly biased opinion piece.

I definitely agree. All of the lines about how much Mantha is producing "now that Athanasiou is back" and ignoring how good he was looking beforehand.

I looked it up recently - for all the flak Mantha gets he's doing better than Jurco did in his first season (on a stacked Calder Cup winning team)

12/13 Jurco: 28 pts in 74 games
Mantha: 21 pts in 42 games

 

[DanZ]

I definitely agree. All of the lines about how much Mantha is producing "now that Athanasiou is back" and ignoring how good he was looking beforehand.

I looked it up recently - for all the flak Mantha gets he's doing better than Jurco did in his first season (on a stacked Calder Cup winning team)

12/13 Jurco: 28 pts in 74 games
Mantha: 21 pts in 42 games

I consider this somewhat of a lost season for Mantha too. The broken leg really set him back, as it would anyone. I think we'll get a much better idea of where he's at next year.

 

[Unfriendly Ghost]

I consider this somewhat of a lost season for Mantha too. The broken leg really set him back, as it would anyone. I think we'll get a much better idea of where he's at next year.

Plus, I think a lot of people are looking at it like: Mantha is producing all the points that he can produce, given reasonable icetime. But that's not true, because Blashill is benching him fairly often and intentionally limiting his PP time, and on top of that making sure Anthony plays both ends of the ice.

Really, I think Mantha is producing fewer points than he could, and perhaps significantly fewer than if his coach just let him do his thing. Now, it's a good thing that Blash is teaching him to play a pro-style game, but we shouldn't pretend that Mantha's point totals show that his offensive upside is lower or anything like that.*

*with the exception of his shot. I don't know where the hell the Mantha Ray went. He needs to bring it out of retirement and score some one-time goals.