NotProkofievian
Registered User
- Nov 29, 2011
- 24,476
- 24,599
Just like in the NHL where a lot of rookie centers break in on the wing, Kotkaniemi played wing in his country’s top men’s league. In his own age group, he’s played center. That’s pretty common among very young players in men’s leagues.
“Skating” is such a broad term that it’s really very meaningless. He’s not slow of foot. He actually gets around the ice pretty well, despite some very poor mechanics. He skates hunched over, and has a scoot to his stride. Even with those very correctable issues, he’s really quite mobile and is able to get around the ice effectively.
Now imagine what happens when an nhl skating coach works with him on his mechanics and gets a lot of that stuff corrected? How good is he then? It’s about upside and development. He’s already very good and has a lot of room to grow.
Same story with his size. He’s a string bean but already quite strong and tested very well at the combine despite being thin and lean. How powerful can he be when he’s able to work with nhl strength and conditioning and nutrition folks? When he’s able to add lean mass to his lanky frame, how does that improve his game?
He’s got some easily correctable things that could really elevate his game. That has to be very intriguing to NHL teams. They have the resources to take this prospect and mold him into something so much better. That’s exciting.
What do you mean by scoot?
Great post btw. A lot of the narrative on the habs board is how we should avoid him because he's ''flawed'' and you don't take ''flawed'' players 3OA. Little to no analysis is given about what the flaws are specifically, or if they're correctable. Given a player of Jesperi's calibre, and the opportunity to select him, that should be the question.