Chris Higgins or Kyle Wellwood or Spezza - How is a prospect judged ??

[Mess]

You never really proved anything you know.
You just kept arguing until everyone else lost interest.

Proved everything I wanted to, at least to me anyways, and Leaf Army summed it up pretty well in an earlier post above this one ...

and whether you feel I proved anything to you is irrelevant in the big picture anyways as its Leaf Managment that hold all the cards.

People just refused to look at he facts and judge a player on his progress and abilities rather than his draft position ..


This is a direct quote from Fergy yesterday it seems .. Wellwood has caught his attention

Small Forward Rising Up

by Matthew Frost -- mapleleafs.com

(TORONTO) -- When the Tampa Bay Lightning's Martin St. Louis followed up his Stanley Cup championship with a Hart Trophy, to go along with his selection to the NHL's First All-Star team, much was made of the return of the smaller forward. And you didn't have to look too far to find similar stories around the league with Daniel Briere in Buffalo, Steve Sullivan in Nashville and Mike Comrie in Phoenix.

In Toronto, fans need to look no further than to St. John's Maple Leafs forward Kyle Wellwood, listed in the Leafs media guide at 5'10', as a player who may also eventually fall into that category. Wellwood burst onto to the AHL scene last season, leading all rookies 55 points on 20 goals and 35 assists.

But for Leafs GM John Ferguson, smaller players who reach the levels achieved by players like St. Louis must still earn the opportunity to compete for a job in the NHL, a message that was communicated to Wellwood last summer.

"We asked Kyle to make a commitment to his physical training and to go beyond where he had been before. To improve in areas of his game that would allow him to compete for a job at the NHL level at some point."

"To his credit, he took that message to heart."

Wellwood spent much of the summer working daily with Leafs strength and conditioning coach Matt Nichol and the results, so far, have been there. Through the first 17 games of the season, Wellwood had put up 22 points on 12 goals and 14 assists after 20 games.

Ferguson says he's seen improvement in Wellwood's game, he also notes that teams need patience with players when their progress stalls.

"Those (of St. Louis and others) are all great stories," said Ferguson. "But there's a lesson in there too. Many of those players were on their third teams. We want to find out if Wellwood can play for our club, not find out that he can play for someone else's (in the future)."

...............................................................................................................

The section in blue is the most promising in that is shows to me anyways that Toronto intends to give him his chance and opportunity to see what he can do and be patient .. He does not want Wellwood to be a success story on another team .. and that is promising for Wellwood fans ...

 

[Sammy*]

Proved everything I wanted to .. Its just too bad the conversation was over the head of most of the posters .. For that I can't be blamed ...

...

This just "proves" you just dont get it.
Sad, very sad.

 

[habfan4]

Proved everything I wanted to .. Its just too bad the conversation was over the head of most of the posters .. For that I can't be blamed ...

Not exactly a classy way to close out a thread that sparked some interesting debate.

 

[Ismellofhockey]

Having seen Wellwood play for the first time since the WJCs I can definitely see why he's put up so many points. His skill level is definitely there.
However it was also very obvious to see that his speed is nowhere near Spezza's.

The only problem I see now for Wellwood is that in the highlight reel they showed of his goals, most of them were of him taking advantage of poor to average defensemen or goalies, who gave him much more time and space than any NHL player would. Case in point was his goal against Binghamton, a beautiful play but it remains to be seen whether he can make NHL calibre defensemen look as bad as Fibiger.

 

[Mess]

Not exactly a classy way to close out a thread that sparked some interesting debate.

Just a quick witted response to a poster that could care less about the thread to start with .. Not directed at those that contributed to the discussion of which you where certainly one .. and as you can tell by my post that he responded to I put a big grinning smilie next to the satement in the first place ..

but it does get frustrating, when the discussion is one sided and trying to be impartial and non critical .. Just a thought provoking one and each other post is a personal attack against you .. If you know what I mean ..there are lots of those posts in here ..

Many of the posters in here did take the I'll defend Higgins stance when the point wasn't needed as he didn't need defending as he was not being attacked as you know just others success being measured against ..

I apologise if I offended you for that post it was not my intention, I certainly was not considering you in that other group that posted nothing but on the first page and last page and read nothing in-between ..

and it does not matter what I say or what kind of discussion had .. Peoples perceived stereotypes and biases will always cloud their judgement on topics like this ..

 

[Mess]

Having seen Wellwood play for the first time since the WJCs I can definitely see why he's put up so many points. His skill level is definitely there.
However it was also very obvious to see that his speed is nowhere near Spezza's.

The only problem I see now for Wellwood is that in the highlight reel they showed of his goals, most of them were of him taking advantage of poor to average defensemen or goalies, who gave him much more time and space than any NHL player would. Case in point was his goal against Binghamton, a beautiful play but it remains to be seen whether he can make NHL calibre defensemen look as bad as Fibiger.

That is the Million dollar question on the table .. Can his offense skill set and abilities with the puck translate to the NHL level .. The promissing thing is that this is the AHL and not the OHL so that helps in the projection somewhat .. The other things you probably noticed was that many of his highlight reel goals are scored in close to the net, where he has often been considered and PERIMETER player, which is clearly false. Smaller player due have a reputation of staying out of trouble along the boards and PP specialists but this is not the case..

No one knows fro sure right now .. but Wellwood has be asked by management to work on his play away from the puck and increase his strength and conditioning and according to GM Fergy & SJ coach Shedden he is doing that ... he is one of the Top scorers in the AHL, His team is winning many games and he is often one of the game stars each night .. Not much else to do but take a wait and see attitude and let the future unfold .. but as a Wellwood fan like me you can't help but get excited about the possibilty of NHL success or at least if nothing else Wellwood certainly is worth the price of admission to see him play in the AHL ..

 

[habfan4]

Just a quick witted response to a poster that could care less about the thread to start with .. Not directed at those that contributed to the discussion of which you where certainly one .. and as you can tell by my post that he responded to I put a big grinning smilie next to the satement in the first place ..

but it does get frustrating, when the discussion is one sided and trying to be impartial and non critical .. Just a thought provoking one and each other post is a personal attack against you .. If you know what I mean ..there are lots of those posts in here ..

Many of the posters in here did take the I'll defend Higgins stance when the point wasn't needed as he didn't need defending as he was not being attacked as you know just others success being measured against ..

I apologise if I offended you for that post it was not my intention, I certainly was not considering you in that other group that posted nothing but on the first page and last page and read nothing in-between ..

and it does not matter what I say or what kind of discussion had .. Peoples perceived stereotypes and biases will always cloud their judgement on topics like this ..

Sorry Messenger - I forgot this guy ---->>> at the end of my earlier post.

 

[Jason MacIsaac]

Higgins is amazing defensivly and can hit like a truck. Wellwood is poor defensivly but getting better and isn't overly physical. What he did in Halifax was odd though.

 

[Buffaloed]

I'm giving this thread the official award

Time to move on. It's too bad the Jonathan Zion vs Brian Campbell thread is no longer here. :lol