I think it's bold to claim Tolvanen having clearly higher hockey IQ when Kapanen was known for his versatile style where he could play center or even defender in the NHL. Also, saying Tolvanen doesn't lose much to Kapanen in skating is like saying Kapanen doesn't lose much to Tolvanen in shooting.
Yeah, I also believe Tolvanen will become the better player than Kapanen was but let's respect both players for what they are good at.
Ok, sure you can disagree with these things. Still didn’t change my mind on them. I never said that Kapanen was bad with his hockey IQ, just that Tolvanen is still clearly better. Tolvanen has excellent hockey IQ and in my opinion Kapanen was more like pretty good with it. Versatility in playing different positions doesn’t still mean that you have excellent hockey IQ. You can exactly play well different positions with fairly good IQ and the kind of great skating that Kapanen had.
Offensively Kapanen had pretty decent IQ but just borderline good in my opion. Defensively he was a bit better than that, so that and his skating made the versatility with different positions possible. But lets not claim also that he was by any means a very good defenceman when he played that position. He was ok, but not much more than that, as his small size caused also some problems at his own end.
And once again, I admit that Kapanen was a better skater than Tolvanen. There’s no doubt in that. But I just have to remind that Tolvanen is a very underrated skater so far. He is in fact already a very good skater, but not excellent like Kapanen was. But the difference between being a very good skater and an execellent skater is not really very big in my opinion. This is anyway a thing that is in the eye of the beholder. I believe also that Tolvanen will even further develop his skating in 2 or 3 years.
