His skating is just so impressive, gets up to top speed ridiculous fast, and he really flies at top speed too. Has a weird, chaotic looking skating style, reminds me of guys like Ovechkin and Hall with the way he skates, limbs flying all over the place but very effective regardless. Agreed with other posters in the previous thread who said that puck handling is probably his biggest weakness, he's a good but not great puck handler, but he's very young, just turned 16 in September, so I expect it to come around. His hockey sense also seems good but not elite, but again, he's so young that I expect that to come around too, especially as he gets more and more comfortable in the Q. He's gonna be a beast.
That LA scout had him as a "top 10, maybe a top 5, possibly a top 1".
Precaution or ignorance?
Very overly cautious IMO, bordering on ignorance. The 2013 draft is quite a ways away, who knows what happens between now and then, but I'd think he's the strong favourite to go 1st overall in 2013 at the moment, and it's pretty hard to imagine him falling out of the top 3, nevermind the top 5. Even this early I feel pretty confident saying that MacKinnon is top 5 lock as long as he stays healthy.
MacKinnon looked awesome in the Q vs Russia last night, I only saw the 3rd period but he was something else. Always seems to be in a scoring position similar to Tavares but he has much better skating. Excited to see this guy at Team Canadas Dec camp just to see how he compares.
Was cooking dinner and doing some homework while watching the game, so not fully tuned in, but to me he was definitely one of the more dangerous looking players on the ice for either team, still raw and sometimes trying to do to much, but very impressive for a kid who just turned 16 a couple months ago. Can't believe the QMJHL team lost that game, they had the puck pretty much the entire time but just could not score.
