Burnt Biscuits
Registered User
- May 2, 2010
- 9,164
- 3,179
First thing is he plays the half wall on even strength which is highly unusual, he basically lines up on the opposite side of where Nuge lines up on the powerplay, I don't know if this is how he gets a lot of his points, but it certainly doesn't hurt his point totals. I also can't really recall any 17/18 yr old rookie in college seeing the kind of ice-time he does, he certainly deserves it with how well he looks after his own end, but few players are put in such a great position to succeed so early in their college careers.
If we draft Noah Hanifin, I don't think anyone but the most jaded fan will regret it, he's a special player and he's really got a great handle on the game and how it should be played, he is really strong for his age and is highly mobile. I have no doubt he will be a very good d-man and we will grow to love him, my contention is whether or not he will be the best defenseman taken in this draft in 5/6 years time. Are we going to be the team that drafts a Bogosian right before a Pietrangelo or an Adam Larsson over a Dougie Hamilton, the two picked earlier were closer to NHL ready, but the later two were rough around the edges and needed extra development time, but they both arrived as the more impactful players despite not being quite as highly touted.
Here's a great article on Hanifin and they praise him to high heaven, but in it they discuss the scouts concerns with him which are as follows:
1. Does he have high end offense and can he be a high end powerplay quarterback?
2. Does he have a nasty element to his game a-la Pronger, Stevens, Chelios?
The nastiness isn't a big issue to me, the game is changing and that kind of player is a dying breed, playing solid defense and being able to rub out or pin your man to regain possession of the puck are the important things and he routinely demonstrates he is capable of doing this, there are always those 3rd pairing d-men types who will prioritize physicality over defensive play if that's what you really want. Nastiness is a nice bonus, but really shouldn't be a driving factor at the draft table this early in the draft. I know his point totals look good, but from watching him I really do question his high end offensive upside, he is out there a ton and gets a lot of touches on the puck and doesn't turn it over much, but I don't see elite offensive vision out of him and he's not as scary when he sneaks down low in comparison to a Seth Jones or a pre-Oilers Justin Schultz; his shot is good, but he's not picking corners like Josh Morrissey or Ryan Murphy did. He doesn't walk the blue line and make those subtle adjustment to sneak shots through like Karlsson or Weber routinely do. Maybe those elements can be coached into him, I know I seen Weber probably 7-8 times before he made the NHL and while I fully believed he could become roughly what Boychuk is now, I never would of guessed in a million years he'd become one of the 3 best d-men in the NHL.
It seems to me in watching players come up it is really rare aside from that Weber example, that you see a player who doesn't basically scream out I have elite offense end up becoming that top shelf powerplay quarterback. It seems to be one of those things you either have it or you don't and while you can improve, it's very unlikely you will become that high end powerplay quarterback if you aren't demonstrating that capacity really early on in your career.
