Hmm, maybe I need more context for you. When I refer to him as a tough guy, I mean as a fighter or intimidator. On our own team alone guys like Foligno and Stewart would beat him like a drum. I would say him being built like a tank is a negative for what we are talking about. The fact that he is built like that means he has a pretty significant strength and weight advantage over most of the guys he plays against. As a pest running around hitting people, sure he could probably do that in the NHL, but so can 50 street free agents.
I'm sorry but I don't take a ton of faith in the has the mentality of a warrior in jr hockey against teenagers, tho not to get side tracked, as it comes to Barb-mania, he actually plays a tenacious warrior like game as well, despite being a relatively light guy in comparison to Lemieux.
I would believe in his offense translating if I ever saw him consistently using that NHL shot to score from distance, but where he scores most of his goals his shot is pretty irrelevant. I already mentioned his in tight abilities and what seems missing. Maybe he will show that more this year. I would also be more confident in him if I saw any legitimate play making ability.
I said it before, I don't hate his game at all. I just think what he showed is more suited to a later pick, while someone like Barbashev has several skills that make me more confident that he too could play a bottom six role, but he had better chance at making it to the top six, which is why I would use a higher pick on him rather than Lemieux.
Do you have anything to say about Barbashev and his game, or do you want to just defend Murray's choice by saying Lemieux will be good let's stop talking about this other possibility?