Angelo Esposito

[Biz Nasty]

I don't think he's had any atttitude issues in a few years. Certainly not any in in the last 2.

I was speaking more towards the years around his draft...certainly when he came to the Pens rookie camp and training camp the word was that he would sulk at the first hint of criticism. I imagine that was one of the reasons that Shero was willing to part with him before he really got a shot to develop...

 

[axecrew]

Sorry for the late reply folks...just got back home tonight.

To those who ask about his skating.....he's really getting better. He is still not 100% and even he says he's not there yet. As some have mentioned he had 2 knee injuries in 2 years, both him tearing his acl in his right knee.

The one thing I have noticed is that he doesn't have that next gear to go to when he gets a little separation between himself and the defender. He has often been caught from behind on a partial break, or a semi break away.
Unfortunately he has really suffered because of the missed developement, as a number of times he will get the puck and head into the offensive zone, when he gets there it seems as if he's unsure of what to do next, then he gets caught by a defender and sometimes gets pushed off the puck or pushed in a direction that he doesn't want to go.

I'm sure over time he will becomer stronger and his developement will get better, but I don't think he'll ever live up to the hype that he had in '07.

As to attitude issues, he had a few of those when he first got to Chicago, but most of that was agent influenced. He seems much more approachable now and when asked about his reluctance to intermingle with fans and sign autographs only if personalizing them to whomever he said his agent told him to do that. As you can see his agent got into his head and filled it with a bunch of crap and Esposito bought into it.

As to the comments about how he rode Radulov's coat tails etc.....maybe so, but I'll tell you right now, I'll take him over that piece of **** any day. What kind of numbers has Radulov put up in the NHL recently......oh....wait that's right, he walked out on a legal binding contract and went to russia. Does anyone know what his numbers are over there?

 

[Bjorn Le]

I don't think any sane person would take Esposito over Radulov.

Radulov is far and away the best player not in the NHL and it's a crying shame he's not in the NHL. Are you being sarcastic when asking for his numbers? He's dominating the KHL.

 

[SergeConstantin74]

Dude had ridiculous wheels...I remember watching him at Pens training camp in the same skating drill as Sid and Esposito just flat out dusted him. It's a shame that the injuries and the attitude issues derailed him...he definitely had the chops to be an exciting player down the road.

He never had attitude issues... He's a really nice guy and hard worker.

 

[Puckgenius*]

He is a bust. He was hyped up to the moon when he was drafted and look what happened now.

 

[UsernameWasTaken]

If you want an interesting take on Esposito go read Gare Joyce's 'Future Greats and Heartbreaks' (and even if you don't care about Esposito it's still a fascinating book!).