Bouchard vs Dobson

[cg98]

Bouchard's hockey sense is far superior to Dobson's. It's like 2 tiers away if you're grouping defensemen by that metric. It's hard to imagine how someone could see it differently if they've watched both players.

Hard to take this seriously since you were also saying how Ty Smith was ‘horrible’ when he clearly isnt.

 

[rt]

I like Bouchard more. By a good margin. Dobson has fantastic skating and all compass mobility. Just a pleasure to watch a kid that tall be able to gallop around the ice the way he does. I find his game a bit more passive than Bouchard’s (not in a good way), and his reactions a bit slower. His shot is much more deliberate and telegraphed than Bouchard’s. Both guys need work. Both guys have a lot of upside. I just feel like Bouchard has more of the dynamic offensive stuff intrinsically and while he needs to work on skating (among other things) his list of homework assignments is a bit less daunting than Dobson’s.

 

[rt]

I'd take Dobson pretty easily. His game is so complete and polished. His upside is Pietrangelo, while I think Bouchard's is something closer to Carlson. Dobson has good offensive instincts and plays a very smooth controlled game. While neither of these guys are locks to be stars or even top 4 defenders. I think Dobson has a very realistic chance of his middle gound being a 2/3 defender who skates very well and shuts down the opposition similar to what J-Bo has been since he left Florida. That is an extremely valuable piece. Bouchard's numbers are a bit inflated, and I don't think he's reliable in his own end and competes hard enough.

JayBo is a great comp for Dobson.

 

[biturbo19]

Why does everyone say that Dobson has more upside? IMO Bouchard's passing, shooting, and offensive ability gives him more potential than Noah Dobson. If he can improve his skating, he could be a top 5 offensive defenceman in his prime.

Kind of depends on what you're weighting "potential" toward. Some people are going to prefer Bouchard's more natural offensive skillset. Others are going to prefer the more natural movement and all-around upside of Dobson.

If you're looking for the greatest "offensive potential", i think that's probably Bouchard. If you're looking for the biggest matchup minute munching "do it all potential"...that might be Dobson.

Clearly you're emphasizing the offensive skillset here. But imo, there's just as much "upside" in the more well-rounded defenceman...even if the passing, shooting, offensive ability doesn't ever quite hit that same level.

 

[cbtitan]

Provorov has taken big strides. There was a video about how hard he trained over the summers along with Sergachev. Juolevi was the better prospect at that point in time, and he hasn't made the same strides. It remains to be seen what he will be, but he has the superior hockey sense and puck-moving ability. If Dobson can make similarly big strides as Provorov he'll be a great player, but compared to Bouchard he's got a long way to go. Unlike pro scouts most of us are not privy to details about player's habits and drive to improve.

Anything is possible with young players, they are volatile like that. Dominant players can fizzle out, and non-descript players can become stars. Anthony DeAngelo is a good example, he was one of the most dominant junior players I'd ever seen in his D+1 year, he could skate and dangle through an entire team, do a lap and repeat, on top of that had the puck the whole game, it wasn't like he was turning it over a lot. Now he can't even score in the AHL.

But you are still way out of line on Dobson....

 

[Enrico Ciccone]

Because he is a freak athletic talent. Do you see how he plays? I mean, it's pretty obvious what his deal is...you see how he joins rushes and hangs around the attack zone?

I'm sure Dion Phaneuf also increased his stats in the Dub and probably had some sort of letter...

In any case, it doesn't matter, statistics and captaincy have little to do with hockey sense at this level. Hockey sense is seen in game play, you can't read about it in the newspaper haha

Someone like Hunter does not hand the Captaincy to an idiot. An underage idiot at that. Bouchard's hockey IQ is just fine and his vision and passing are pretty elite.
Having said that, I think Dobson is the safer pick.

 

[93LEAFS]

Someone like Hunter does not hand the Captaincy to an idiot. An underage idiot at that. Bouchard's hockey IQ is just fine and his vision and passing are pretty elite.
Having said that, I think Dobson is the safer pick.

I don't think Bouchard is low-IQ, but he does have defensive issues and isn't a great skater.

But, I don't think the Dale Hunter doesn't give idiots a letter is a bit far-reaching. This is the same coach that gave Max Jones a letter to start the year.

 

[Megaterio Llamas]

Oh, I thought I had read that it was more significant. 4 months is still notable at that age, though.

Dobson is 80 days younger than Bouchard actually.

 

[Go Wings]

I would be happy if Detroit draft either of them I personally like Dobson slightly better than Bouchard.

The comments in this thread are hilarious in the bashing on Bouchard. So he is a slow skater and has poor hockey sense? How did he get 25 goals and 87 points in 67 games then? While he isnt as quick as Hughes and Dobson he has good hockey sense and is a great passer.
Smarten up people.

 

[cbtitan]

And so are the comments on Dobson!

He was named the best D and 1st star team member at the Memorial Cup as a 17 YO and he showed the whole nation why he should be considered as a top-3 pick for the NHL draft.
Scouts might disagree from tema to team, but I do consider the Mem Cup as the highest comptetitive level of junior hockey in the world, even higher than the U-20 world cup.

 

[CanaFan]

Dobson is 80 days younger than Bouchard actually.

The actual days isn’t significant, but I think the number of seasons each has played major junior (3 vs 2) is.

 

[Michael Farkas]

I put together a video and some thoughts on Evan Bouchard and his hockey sense for those that are still interested...

http://hfboards.mandatory.com/threa...ohl-2018-draft.2188011/page-12#post-146749509

 

[Johnsie19]

I don't think Bouchard is low-IQ, but he does have defensive issues and isn't a great skater.

But, I don't think the Dale Hunter doesn't give idiots a letter is a bit far-reaching. This is the same coach that gave Max Jones a letter to start the year.

Check out the post on Evan Bouchards page in the prospects here on hf. It has a great vid of Bouchard's abysmal defensive play and hockey sense. Not saying he's terrible its just alarming his tendencies.

 

[Bob Clarke Fan Club]

I'd take Dobson, not a knock on Bouchard by any means. Noah is an insanely talented kid with the work ethic to supplement the talent. It's an overused term, but he absolutely "gets it."

 

[scoutman1]

I would take Dobson hands down...the kid improved so much this year it gives you taste of how much better he can get, Bouchard is extremely talented himself and I really like his game and him as a prospect but Dobson from start of year to finish improved leaps and bounds, something that means A LOT in wondering how amazing he can really be.

 

[Unfriendly Ghost]

Check out the post on Evan Bouchards page in the prospects here on hf. It has a great vid of Bouchard's abysmal defensive play and hockey sense. Not saying he's terrible its just alarming his tendencies.

I was going to post this on the other thread, but it's gone a little bit of a different direction, so I'll post it here.

So the stuff in that video is definitely not very inspiring, but we have to keep it in context. I think there's a tendency for humans to see examples like that and generalize from it. But we have to remember that those clips came from 2 games in the playoffs. 2 games is not an adequate sample size to make any kind of judgment about his game, and certainly not 2 games from the same part of the season. We would be totally in the wrong if we concluded that the video was all the evidence we need, and made a judgment off of that.

But even so, there are credible reasons why Bouchard would be worse at that point in the season:

(1) He played a million minutes all season long, so it's likely that he was pretty wiped out by that point, and it seems pretty common that exhausted players make a lot of mental mistakes.

(2) After the trade deadline, Bouchard was "the guy" in a way that perhaps he was not used to. It's pretty likely that he felt a lot of pressure to carry the team in the playoffs, which meant cheating a lot defensively to get more offense in.. Also, we should expect that this factor got worse as the series went on and London continued to lose.

I know the NHL pushes the whole "gee shucks" humble farmboy type image for its players, but in reality potential top 5 draft picks have a strong desire to control games themselves. It's not surprising that Bouchard's reaction to adversity was to try to play more to his strengths to take control of the game. It wasn't a good decision, but I understand.

(3) The last reason is particularly believable because London got beaten by Owen Sound pretty handily. They got swept. So this was not Bouchard bringing down a good team so much as it was Bouchard failing to elevate a bad team.

(4) The idea that Bouchard was a defensive stalwart in the first place was oddly enough not really discussed until people started criticizing his defensive play. If Bouchard were as good defensively as people think he should be, he would be challenging Svechnikov. He's an offensive defenseman with fairly typical offensive defenseman flaws. He's sort of a mirror image Dobson, IMO, who can handle himself defensively but lacks that high offensive upside.

 

[Michael Farkas]

Just to be clear, if it matters (it may not). The Owen Sound game is a playoff game. The Soo game is mid to late regular season if memory serves. #5 London was swept by #4 Owen Sound in the first round, so they played no other opponent. There were two other mid regular season games (around the holidays I think) that were left on the cutting room floor before the same things happened in all of them and it was already running long.

This is not to be at odds with your points, just an honest, clarifying remark.

 

[Unfriendly Ghost]

Just to be clear, if it matters (it may not). The Owen Sound game is a playoff game. The Soo game is mid to late regular season if memory serves. #5 London was swept by #4 Owen Sound in the first round, so they played no other opponent. There were two other mid regular season games (around the holidays I think) that were left on the cutting room floor before the same things happened in all of them and it was already running long.

This is not to be at odds with your points, just an honest, clarifying remark.

You're exactly right. I got that wrong. Having the games be a bit apart in time is better from a sampling standpoint.

 

[le_sean]

I’ll take the one that actually plays well defensively and can skate.

 

[lawrence]

I was going to post this on the other thread, but it's gone a little bit of a different direction, so I'll post it here.

So the stuff in that video is definitely not very inspiring, but we have to keep it in context. I think there's a tendency for humans to see examples like that and generalize from it. But we have to remember that those clips came from 2 games in the playoffs. 2 games is not an adequate sample size to make any kind of judgment about his game, and certainly not 2 games from the same part of the season. We would be totally in the wrong if we concluded that the video was all the evidence we need, and made a judgment off of that.

But even so, there are credible reasons why Bouchard would be worse at that point in the season:

(1) He played a million minutes all season long, so it's likely that he was pretty wiped out by that point, and it seems pretty common that exhausted players make a lot of mental mistakes.

(2) After the trade deadline, Bouchard was "the guy" in a way that perhaps he was not used to. It's pretty likely that he felt a lot of pressure to carry the team in the playoffs, which meant cheating a lot defensively to get more offense in.. Also, we should expect that this factor got worse as the series went on and London continued to lose.

I know the NHL pushes the whole "gee shucks" humble farmboy type image for its players, but in reality potential top 5 draft picks have a strong desire to control games themselves. It's not surprising that Bouchard's reaction to adversity was to try to play more to his strengths to take control of the game. It wasn't a good decision, but I understand.

(3) The last reason is particularly believable because London got beaten by Owen Sound pretty handily. They got swept. So this was not Bouchard bringing down a good team so much as it was Bouchard failing to elevate a bad team.

(4) The idea that Bouchard was a defensive stalwart in the first place was oddly enough not really discussed until people started criticizing his defensive play. If Bouchard were as good defensively as people think he should be, he would be challenging Svechnikov. He's an offensive defenseman with fairly typical offensive defenseman flaws. He's sort of a mirror image Dobson, IMO, who can handle himself defensively but lacks that high offensive upside.

Agree. I’m sure a video of all the good things he’s done can also be putten together of him making him look real good. Heck even his highlite package of shots on goals and passing, shows some positive offensive traits. We will have to see where he will actually end up, and If the scouts see what the issues mike farkas saw for a long time, btw awesome work.