Pokechecker
Registered User
- Mar 25, 2010
- 44
- 0
Niederreiter and Bartschi are both far from even holding down a roster spot in the NHL, they look like good prospects with lots of potential(seen lots of both) but they still have their work cut out for them. There are Czechs and often times Slovaks drafted pretty much every year with their potential or atleast similar potential and I would guess based on what I know that there will be much more talented players coming from those two countries in the next few years then Switzerland. I do think Niederreiter will be a NHL player, he is far from guaranteed to be a steady top 6 player yet alone a major impact player but im confident he will have a NHL career and he does have the potential to be a impact player on his team. Bartschi is also looking good but he is still young and its hard to judge but the potential is there, though at this point I wouldent bet my life on a NHL career yet, mind you I wouldent do that on probably 90% of the prospects going in to most drafts.
What im saying is to get things in perspective because Swiss hockey still has a long way to go and you will be disappointing if you get ahead of your selves. But I gotta say they are on the right track and if things continue the way they have been its very possible that sometime in the distant future they will surpass Czech republic and Slovakia maybe even this decade.
Like this fortune cookie I had a few years back.
"Keep your expectations low to avoid disappointments"
I don't dare to put Czech and Slovak hockey into the same category-level. Although compared to their glory past and great history both countries have real problems in their junior-development-program. But it's still more or less clear that Czech junior-hockey is better than Slovak-junior-hockey and the Swiss is on the Slovak-junior-hockey-level right now, probably even a tiny little bit better but the Czechs are still ahead of Switzerland - the gap is closer compared to a couple of years ago but it's still a gap. Czech No. 6, Swiss No. 7a and Slovak No. 7b - just my words.
Thomas Roost