Thank you for the nice words and well thought out post.
As long as we keep sending more and more of our kids to the NHL, I'll be ecstatic. Though for pure Ticino pride, as I said I would like at least one from here!
Sometimes I wonder what could have been for Cereda & the Leafs, had he not had that heart problem.
I am still scratching my head about Hoffman. I still think that he could have been a very solid third line winger in the NHL, and relatively easily.
To be honest, as much as I like the amount of NHL-quality players to rise further, I always feel a bit ambivalent when they do actually cross the pond. Especially with the NHL-POs still overlapping the WHCs, and the childish handeling of the OGs. But that really gets pretty off-topic.
We'll never know what a healthy Cereda would have been capable of in the NHL. What we do know, that his influence in Ambri really helped to stabilize things again there after some chaotic years. Him and Duca seem to do a tremendous job.
I always had a soft spot for Hofmann and watched his path closely. IIRC I even was stating once in here many years ago that he probably had the highest ceiling of the Swiss 92ers forwards. (Nino, Bärtschi, Haas, Vermin)
Well, it didn't end up exactly like this. He's definitely a very electrifying and very likeable player, when totally in sync. But him being really fragile mentally is a major concern. 2 or 3 bad plays at the start of a game means panicmode activated, timing and vision deactivated. And then he's typically done for rest. Plus he has no concept on how to defend effectively as well, and very poor balance on his skates once physically challenged. Even in a soften up NHL, these are major concerns.
Though, he still has a few years of dominance in the NLA in his tank I think. And I still hope, we'll see him once at a WHC in full sync and on top of his offensive potential for a whole tournament. He was fine in Denmark, but he had some prep. tournaments in the past, where he simply dominated. We haven't seen that yet when it really counted.
And to come back to the actual topic of the thread.
Generally I think, 3 (4) things must come together for a CHL adventure to be a success for a Swiss prospects
1: high enough talent level to be a difference maker. If you aren't among the very top in your peer in Switzerland, and can't outproduce a vast majority of guys a year older don't even try it. High risk it will be a lost year for you, and you'll lose ground against your peers.
2: Maturity. Mental flexibility and adaptability to proccess all the new inputs in a strange environment effectively. And a stable personality to sustain the tough moments. Those will come with certainty.
3:a quality franchise with a plan. You gotta somehow sense if coaching quality is there and if it's really you and your skillset they wanted. If you come to the conclusion, that one or both of them don't apply, don't go. And if you're already there, leave asap.
4: Isn't a must, but makes everything much handier: quality Skating/speed. Gives you actually a plus of a little fraction of time on the ice, which might be decisive to find the room to adapt the game to the smaller ice without being on the backfoot all the time.
For Canonica:
1 and 4: hard to judge with the limited viewing, but probably yes.
2: no freaking idea
3: without having any in-depth knowledge about the actual situation in Shawinigan, we just can judge from the past. And the case Nussbaumer doesn't give me the best gut feeling.
Let's hope it pans out for both sides!