Jarnkrok may be a rookie but he really isn't that young. He really hasn't been very impressive this season as a whole. His defensive awareness is probably his best attribute. He still has time to improve but I am not seeing a player that will ever be more than a third line center if he can even hold onto that.
The 3rd line has been a complete disaster this year, and it's hard to tell if Hook is part of that, or held back by it. You gotta' believe when Poile was signing all these vets as stopgaps on the roster he was thinking he'd have FF9 and Hook with one of them on that 3rd and we'd be hoping to have 5 guys in that top 6 to give JN a little support, which would give us a chance to evaluate the kids in lower-pressure 3rd line role.
But, when all the pieces fell right for the top 6, failing to cut the clearly-out-of-gas oldtimers loose quicker and either getting one of the kids up for a look or finding someone sooner than MS seems a blunder. But, hard to know if PL would sit Cullen down anyway.
I expect Hook comes back as our 3rd line C to start next year and if he doesn't improve considerably he gets sent packing - we got too many kids at Milw to just hang onto Hook at this level of performance - unless he's getting Goose's role when that contract is up.
