That's because you guys think way too low of Tierney. I swear, nobody on this team get more unjustified hate than Tierney. He's a solid middle-6 player.
There's about 650 regular spots in the NHL. Chris Tierney is the 325th best hockey player in the league.
He's fine but that's it. We'll have a lot of better options in the near future, even for the bottom 6. Guys like C.Brown, Formenton, White, Paul, Chlapik, Abramov, Pinto, Crookshank, Gruden, Davidsson, etc won't really have a chance to crack the top-6 with guys about to be drafted and Tkachuk, Batherson, Norris, L.Brown, Duclair?... so Tierney who is about to be more expensive won't be hard to replace.
Maybe they should trade him at the draft.
This link shows how impressive Norris' production has been in his 20YR old season:
Elite Prospects - AHL Stats All-time season
Only 20YR olds with a higher PPG than Norris with a decent amount of games played are Getzlaf, Perry, Kucherov, Strome, Couture, Brassard and Palmieri.
Damn that's pretty good company
Norris has been really impressive, and I think he's going to be a solid 65+ point center for a long time here.
However, you have to factor in that in the NHL of the last 10 years, most future all-stars are already in the NHL at 20 years old.
Even if you look at his draft year, you have Heiskanen, Makar and Pettersson who've already established themselves as superstars. And then guys like Hischier, Necas, Suzuki, Thomas, Chytil and Yamamoto who are already contributors at the NHL level.
Context though. On a solid team surrounded by good/great veterans, Norris could have graduated this season but the Sens are rebuilding (and not a small rebuild). Sens took the luxury to cook their best prospects a little longer in the AHL. Guys like Brannstrom, Batherson, Balcers, Formenton, Brown and Norris could play in the NHL and improve from there but we want them to develop further and hope Belleville goes on a long playoffs run. Sens are also "tanking" since they only had the 19th OA pick last year (instead of 4th) so they couldn't afford to have some of these guy breakout. That's why guys like Ennis, Hainsey, Namestnikov, even Reilly were brought in : buy more time.
Edit : oh yeah and Norris lost months of development last year.
Being excited is exciting! Good feelings are good!
What are talking about?
Being miserable >>>> happiness
AINEC