The Zetterberg Era
Ball Hockey Sucks
Sadowy is a greasy guy that scores a lot of goals. Actually is a much better skater since his original draft. I have him and Bert as coin flip players. I think Sadowy actually plays more high event hockey, without maybe as high a hockey IQ. But he is a finisher with 97 goals over his last two seasons, including looking virtually identical on Saginaw and Barrie, so two very different team setups. Seems like a second/third line tweener a lot like Bert and I like those guys.
As for Russo, I think his tools need some work to translate up. I think people are overlooking the contributions of Ouellet on that pairing, doing a majority of the heavy lifting in my opinion. I like Russo, but I don't think he is demonstrably better than what we currently have. Plus I find +/- to be a garbage stat and I still need a lot of growth in his defensive game and skating next season and I think that stat line hid a lot of that concern but mine remains when watching him play.
But the biggest reason I voted Sadowy over Russo, is if I was to debate D-man with Sadowy I wouldn't select Russo anyway at this point. Since I have Russo behind XO, Vili and Sproul anyway. I do expect Russo to rise this year in terms of my list, but I want to see him progress in certain areas of his game. He isn't exactly young either in terms of while he seems new compared to XO or Sproul, they are the exact same age group. XO is a much better defensive player and Sproul has incredibly better tools while being similar in terms of his issues in the defensive zone with the growth in his game.
We will see, I hope he continues to progress. But my issues with Russo actually remind me of Sproul's big rookie season in GR... There is a lot more to work on than that stat line suggests in my opinion.
