The issue is that he's a HUGE man playing with teenagers as a top 10 pick. Domination is expected. There is no qualification. If he were in the AHL or NCAA or an European men's league those would be alright explanations, but he's playing in junior hockey as a massive guy. The fact for most of the season his production REGRESSED compared to his numbers the previous year is worrying, even if he was playing hurt. It took a hot streak at the end of the season just for him to return to his average. Again, I think hes a good prospect, but I want to see at least a quarter of the season in the WHL playing like he did in the last 20 games of last season to show it is a real step forward and not him getting hot for a short period.
REGRESSED: Numbers were down while he was injured, numbers were amazing when healthy. Crazy.
even if he was playing hurt: Demanding the moon from someone playing with an injury is simply not an expectation based in reality. Dismissing his injury as a likely or even possible factor in his "regression" makes no sense to me unless you're trying to take credit away from him. Why does the dislike for this prospect seem so personal with some of you?
a hot streak: You call it a hot streak, I call it Rasmussen when playing healthy and injury free.
At the end of the day we will have to wait until Ras is playing in the NHL, as he'll never win some people over until he starts to succeed there. I hope I'm right about the kid, I'm obviously very high on him. No flash and I don't see him dominating shifts or games at an NHL level, but I do see him scoring lots of goals.
I watched the Winnipeg/Vegas series and kept noticing how the Jets, as big and as skilled as they are, could not score. Their big boys refused to drive the net and they never scored dirty goals and they lost that series to an inferior team. I think players who score dirty goals are an under-valued and under-appreciated commodity until your fancy, skilled goal scoring dries up in a tight game or series.
Maybe I'm too high on the kid, as I've seen little of him other than last pre-season where he didn't really stand out during the run of play, but he always seemed to show up on the scoreboard.