no iq, selfish player, yes above-average skating and skills but nothing spectacular, should make for a good story teller in beer league 10 years from now thats it
Sounds like the typical Slovak forward then.
I hate to say it because I'm rooting for Slovakia, but I feel their biggest weakness is their lack of systems and tactics. I don't know the ins and outs of the Slovak youth program, but based on the players that have been coming up the last 15 years, I imagine they don't learn the fundaments of a team oriented game the way kids do in Sweden or Finland.
They develop forwards who have good individual skill, who can deke and finish, but who struggle within systems. This is why I think the Slovak national team are able to perform well when confidence runs high, but really struggle when the confidence is low and they dont have a strong fundamental team game to lean on. And offensively, you rarely see any Slovak forwards who are primarely playmakers or are good passers.
The only regular NHL forwards currently are Tatar and Panik. While I think both of them are good players in their own right, neither of them have passing as one of their strenghts. Then there's Jurco and Dano, skilled guys with good shots, but they don't possess the hockey IQ to utilize their offensive strenghts at the highest level. Cehlarik is the guy I feel has the playmaking skills, but he's slow. If he was faster he might be an NHL'er.
Time will tell how good Chromiak will be, but from what I've seen of him I like him better than I ever liked Dano and Cehlarik at the same age. Tatar/Panik/Jurco I can't really comment on because I didn't follow Slovak juniors as much back then.
I feel like Cajkovic is more likely to fall into the group of Dano/Jurco/Cehlarik in the future, but really hope both pan out to become at least top 9 forwards.
