Bouwmeester's San Antonio production...

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AgentNaslund*

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Jay Bou was proclamined the next great defencemen. The once in every decade type of guy. Smooth Skater with size. HIs production is a disapointment so far. Like Kiril Koltsov shouldnt outscore him.
 

Crossbar

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Apr 29, 2003
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I'm not that worried about Bouwmeester yet, most defensemen usually tend to take until around the 23-26 age range to finally put it all together and reach their full potential (especially big players getting used to their large frame) and Jay is still only 21 years old. Even guys like Chris Pronger and Rob Blake were minus players before becoming top consistant plus-players in the NHL, the Panther fanbase will be patient with Bouwmeester after already learning the hard lesson from trading away Jovanovski.
 

Vlad The Impaler

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Feb 27, 2002
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Boltprospects said:
In other words he's a teddy bear. Maybe questioning his "heart" as I did has too much of a negative connotation to be appropriate, but what you're saying here is exactly the same thing I perceive: a lack of tenacity/ambition. Going back to what Vlad said in comparing Vinny to Bouwmeester, there was no lack of tenacity or ambition in Vinny. He understood he was drafted to be the "savior" of the Lightning franchise and he tried to meet that challenge to live up to that with varying degrees of success. He wanted to be the youngest captain in the league, he wanted that C. He didn't shy away from it. He wasn't ready for that responsibility, but he wanted to lead.

I never felt he had much enthusiasm in leading. Then again, I suppose this is subjective and you probably saw him more often in action.

Boltprospects said:
He wanted to go after Iginla and throw hands in game two of the finals. It didn't have the kind of slingshot effect he maybe wanted for the rest of his game, but he took that responsibility to physically challenge Jarome. He wanted to lead his team. And from a production standpoint, he's had 20 or mor+e goals from his sophomore campaign in the league on, so from a goalscoring standpoint he's really always been a leader by action on this team.

Yeah, Vinny doesn't get enough props for his shot, IMO. He can really unleash shots quickly and from anywhere. If he was playing on the wing, I think he wouldn't realize all his potential but I suspect he'd already have two 40 goal seasons. Anyways.

Your Iginla example is good and all, but at this point you are comparing a fairly older Lecavalier to Bouwmeester. He's starting to bloom now, which is really a sight to see. But backtrack to his fourth season, for instance. That was an ungly season and not just statistically. He was really frustrating to watch there, IMO. Still hit the 20 goals (39 points I think) but his play was poor.

All this to say, it can take time. I respect the fact you see some differences but I still see similarities. I would expect Jay to have ups and downs for a couple more years.

Boltprospects said:
I don't sense Bouwmeester wants that responsibility or has that tenacity/ambition. I don't think it's in his nature to want to be "the franchise" the way Lecavalier has always at least tried to be. And that's why I said he might be better off on a good team surrounded by good talent because in that situation he can have a certain degree of anonymity as just another cog in the machine. He could do that in a place like New Jersey or Tampa or Detroit, he can't do that in Florida. That's probably why he plays better for the national team than he does with his pro club be it in Florida or San Antonio. So I question whether there's a good fit there, although he should be able to post very respectable point totals of 30-45 points a season with the Panthers some time in the near future and continue to gobble up 20-25 minutes a night.

Well, overall the team in Florida can pretty much only go up, collectively and individually. The surrounding around Vinny has slightly improved and the same thing hopefully happens to Bouwmeester. The rest will depend on him, though. His game will have to significantly improve.

Boltprospects said:
You can only be told "the future is coming be patient" so many years before its tar and feather time.

But there's still a looong ways before that, IMO. He's had two satisfactory seasons in the NHL, IMO. Check out how many Ds you can find out since the 2000 draft who currently have more points than Jay. I think you'll be surprised by how few there are. Some of them have had two more NHL seasons to post these numbers and very few can do it. One exception I can think of is overager Zidlicky. I wouldn't be surprised if he stood out going as far as 1999 with defensemen who have had (potentially) five seasons.

The way I look at it, it's still very much time to say "the future is coming, be patient).

Boltprospects said:
And the nature of the defenseman position is that, other than goaltender, your mistakes stand out more so than any position on the team and that makes you a focal point for frustration. Here in Tampa, we eat our own defensemen alive. Pretty unfairly, but we do it. I suspect South Florida will be no different, especially as the next 2-3 years roll by and they continue to see they're not catching up fast enough to what Tampa and Atlanta are doing in the division.

It's going to be tough to catch up, I agree. Although Atlanta has a lot to prove too. Their team has numerous holes and question marks, IMO. I think Florida has a sufficient core to support Bouwmeester eventually. It's up to him to become the player he can be. In which case I think he will be a key member of the franchise.

So far, I'm disappointed in Bouwmeester a bit but he still stands out for a guy his age. There are a comple of negatives but a lot of positives too.
 
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