Definitely Gudbranson has the higher upside, but after watching him many times this season, he scares me as a potential "franchise" player. He had some horrendous discipline problems this year. A lot of head hunting, fighting with officials, and fighting with coaches. As someone that was a huge fan of his, seeing his actions on the ice this year was definitely a disappointment.
Really? I thought the opposite.
Yes, he's got to control the hitting a bit, but I'd rather a guy that had to be reigned in than someone you had to push and prod just to show any sort of physical game from. He got suspended twice for hits to the head, and only one of those hits would have been illegal in the NHL (the first was a clean hit, but the OHL punishes ANYTHING close to the head, unlike the NHL where only blindside head hits are punishable). So one illegal play suddenly raises red flags for you?
And I'm not sure what fighting with the officials you're referring to. He wears an 'A', so yes he talks to the officials a lot, especially after Kingston penalties. But I didn't see this apparent fighting with officials constantly.
As far as fighting with the coaches, all I'll say on that is you have to know the situation here in Kingston to understand that it's very difficult to blame Gudbranson for snapping the way he did. Think of it this way: Imagine a parent who calls in sick to work all the time, and instead just sits around watching tv all day long. Imagine a kid who shows up to school regularly, but one singular day decides to skip class. Now imagine that parent having the nerve to question that kid's overall commitment to the team due to that
one day, ignoring his perfect attendance previously, all the while coming out of the mouth of someone who is the very definition of lacking commitment. I'll leave it to you to figure out who is the "kid" and who is the "parent" in the above example, and how the same sort of hypocrisy applies.
If anything, this season proved to me that his offensive upside is a lot greater than many folks give him credit for. He's already regarded as top notch defensively, but he busted out offensively this year to the tune of 12 goals and 34 points in only 44 games. That, by the way, prorates to better numbers than Moore put up as a 19 year old in the OHL.
IMO, offensively the two (Moore and Gudbranson) aren't as far apart as people seem to believe. Even if Moore has a higher offensive upside, it's not one of those "and it's not even close" deals. And defensively and physically, Gudbranson has a higher upside.