No where did I mention Kesler's 24 thru 28 year old seasons. Might want to take your criticisms of other to heart instead of fabricating stories about stuff they said. It would be total stupidity to compare him to a elite player like Kesler. Or Yzerman, Sakic, Gretzky or Kane for that matter. But here we are on HFOil doing exactly that. Not only that you are belittling Gretzky to try to make Gagner better.
Kesler had 23 points in his 22 year old season playing in a top checking role with scrubs. Gagner barely hit the 40 point total last year playing super easy minutes with Hall and Eberle spoon feeding him his points. I take Kesler, at any age, on my team any day of the week over Gagner if my goal is to win hockey games.
Kesler got 23 points on a team that had Sedin, Morrison and Linden also playing at center for the full 82 game season. Are you sure that Kesler just played "a top checking role with scrubs" or are you just talking out of your ass again? Everyone else in the hockey world knows that once again you're flat out wrong, you'd be best off to just avoid answering this.
You acted as though I sad Gagner > Kesler and to you it was some kind of a joke. Truth is, Gagner was better at 21 & 22 than Kesler was so your joke wasn't funny.
Our failure to communicate is coming from the fact that you just don't understand the limitations of direct comparisons.
When people are citing Gagner's lack of size as evidence that he can't be a good #2 center and the names of Gretzky et al are brought up, it's not an example of me saying "Gagner is better than Gretzky because he's bigger", it just means that centers don't have to top 6'2 and 210 lbs to be effective. IE, Gagner can still be an effective #2 center at 5'10 191 lbs. That's where the comparison ends for a rational, intelligent human. The point made about Gagner's size was moot.
People tried to mitigate the damage done to the size argument by acting as though the other small centers made up for their size with speed that Gagner doesn't possess.
You think that Gretzky's lack of size was overcome by his
above average speed, wrong again. Gretzky had an uncanny level of anticipation, he was very deceptive and agile, he was a great passer forehand and backhand, he had great decision making skills with the puck, a knack for seeing and getting the puck to people in the open, and he was a master of making the very most of what time and space he had with the puck... and he had average speed. With a pedestrian understanding of the game you might want to just attribute his success to him being fast, go ahead and have your opinion. I watched him play from the time he came into the nhl and I think my scouting report >>>>>>>> yours.
. Dear God...". Epic fail.
