C Bradley Nadeau - University of Maine, NCAA (2023, 30th, CAR)

Bubbles

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Apr 16, 2004
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I hope he’s ready, and this doesn’t turn into a Jost/Mittelstadt situation.

Agreed. It's hard to watch a BCHL grad flame out like Jost has.

Mittelstadt seems to have figured it out.

I wonder if it's a push from the team to sign or the player wants to get his ELC and his NHL clock ticking.
 

keppel146

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Jun 4, 2010
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Agreed. It's hard to watch a BCHL grad flame out like Jost has.

Mittelstadt seems to have figured it out.

I wonder if it's a push from the team to sign or the player wants to get his ELC and his NHL clock ticking.
I think teams pressure players too often, but just my opinion. It took Mittelstadt a long time, and imo he was far from ready when he left MN.
 

Corso

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Aug 13, 2018
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Agreed. It's hard to watch a BCHL grad flame out like Jost has.

Mittelstadt seems to have figured it out.

I wonder if it's a push from the team to sign or the player wants to get his ELC and his NHL clock ticking.

Really really feel for Maine as this is a big hit. He will definitely spend some time in the AHL and maybe even finish the year off in the Q next season. I'm sure this was a case of Nadeau wanting to get his ELC rolling more than the Canes pressuring him to sign.

Can't stress enough how terrible I feel for Maine as this was a once very prestigious program who was in the doldrums for quite sometime and finally turned it around this season. I hope it does not set the program back all that much.
 

Hossa

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Feb 27, 2002
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Really questionable decision. Nadeau had a fantastic freshman season, just about the best case scenario for him and Maine relative to expectations at the beginning of the year. But Bradly and his brother were less consistent in the second half without Breen in the middle, and Bradly in particular could have games where he struggled to create his own offence.

Granted, that's entirely understandably for a true freshman on the first line against strong Hockey East teams, and his overall game and compete came a long way throughout the year, but there's no question there was more to gain from a second year of college. It's hard to imagine the AHL as the best place right now for his multi-dimensional offensive game to continue to grow (and the Q should only be a last resort, given how big a step down it would be from HE).

Unless he is significantly closer to the NHL than he looked this year - and, in fairness, his year on year development trajectory has been quite steep, so maybe he takes a major jump - I don't really understand this unless Carolina actually believes he is best served continuing to develop away from his brother. Otherwise, it seems like an unnecessarily risky decision.
 

newsportsfan123

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Dec 16, 2019
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Really questionable decision. Nadeau had a fantastic freshman season, just about the best case scenario for him and Maine relative to expectations at the beginning of the year. But Bradly and his brother were less consistent in the second half without Breen in the middle, and Bradly in particular could have games where he struggled to create his own offence.

Granted, that's entirely understandably for a true freshman on the first line against strong Hockey East teams, and his overall game and compete came a long way throughout the year, but there's no question there was more to gain from a second year of college. It's hard to imagine the AHL as the best place right now for his multi-dimensional offensive game to continue to grow (and the Q should only be a last resort, given how big a step down it would be from HE).

Unless he is significantly closer to the NHL than he looked this year - and, in fairness, his year on year development trajectory has been quite steep, so maybe he takes a major jump - I don't really understand this unless Carolina actually believes he is best served continuing to develop away from his brother. Otherwise, it seems like an unnecessarily risky decision.
The AHL is a developmental league no matter what style you play. He will play with other great prospects on Carolina’s AHL team next year in Blake, Trikozov, Suzuki, and Morrow so that shouldn’t be a huge issue. He is really the only person who controls how he develops. They also could just sign his brother or draft him, so that’s not really a big issue.
 

Hossa

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The AHL is a developmental league no matter what style you play. He will play with other great prospects on Carolina’s AHL team next year in Blake, Trikozov, Suzuki, and Morrow so that shouldn’t be a huge issue. He is really the only person who controls how he develops. They also could just sign his brother or draft him, so that’s not really a big issue.
Sure, but it's also a bigger and more physical league than college, and Nadeau does struggle with that part of the game, as he can with pace at times. More broadly, to suggest only the player controls how he develops kind of flies in the face of everything we've learned about development for decades now. There's no question that the context and situation matters in terms of development.

None of that's intended as a criticism of Carolina or its AHL team, assuming they sort out an affiliate (although to call Suzuki a great prospect at this stage is debatable, assuming he clears waivers next year and is back for a fifth year in the AHL). Moreover, it may not even be fair to assume Nadeau ends up in the AHL, as Carolina quite successfully brought in smaller players like Aho and Jarvis at 19, albeit the former with much more advanced ability to drive offence and the latter with more pace and skating.

I guess the point is just that it's a surprise because as good as Nadeau's season was, it's clear there's more he had to gain from a second year of college and there are reasons to wonder if he's ready to continue developing his offensive game against much older, heavier and faster talent. None of that's a dig at the player; as everybody always says now, even Cale Makar needed two years in college.
 

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