I think you got me confused with someone else. At least I don't remember saying he didn't deserve an ELC. He did and does deserve an ELC. He's got a shot of making the club, albeit a small one, and that is good enough to give him a contract to see how he develops.
This is purely my opinion (which could be very wrong), but I see a guy who has limited offensive talent and has utilized his size in the minors to inflate his output. I do remember saying that he will not be able to use his size advantage in the same way in the AHL and NHL. Hence his numbers will suffer, and they did. Now is the question of whether he has the skill to adjust and become more than he's shown. I'm not sold. But again, that's me. The Sens are my team and I hope every prospect makes it, but I do try to be realistic. You may call it pessimistic.
I still maintain he's got the ceiling of a Derek Grant. A guy who was big and solid defensively, but struggled offensively. He did become an NHL'er after going to many teams and only becoming a regular in his mid to late 20's. We'll see.
Maybe you didn't make such a claim. I thought you had and that is what lead me to think you were being very pessimistic. I guess I had mistaken you with someone else.
I get what you are arguing and you present some valid reasons why we should be skeptical about his upside. I do remember Tory Mann making a comment early in the season that Kastelic is one of the physically strongest players in the AHL and that he wanted him to really use his size and encourage him to play much more physical. I remember finding that statement to be surprising as Mann has coached a long time in the AHL so the suggestion that Kastelic was one of the physically strongest players in the AHL at 21 seemed like a good sign that he could continue to improve in that regard as he gets older and likely end up being one of the strongest players in the NHL if he makes it.
I think that is an important issue that you bring up. Certain kinds of players rely heavily on their physical strength to be effective and there are many examples of a player being physically dominant at the junior level but never finding that same dominance at the AHL or NHL level. If they can continue to be as physically dominant relative to their peers then that would be a good sign. So this is likely something we should keep an eye on with Kastelic as it is an important variable in his overall effectiveness.
I watched almost all his shifts in the AHL this season to make that video so I am fairly familiar with his play. I didn't see as much of his WHL play so I can't really comment about that. From what I have seen the hockey IQ and a lot of the athleticism is there for him to be a good player. He has some limits with his overall skating ability and his hands also seem limited. I wonder if he was able to create the offense in the WHL because of his hockey IQ and if that (and possibly his size and strength) were able to compensate for his more limited hands.
Watching his AHL games, he gets to the net, he puts himself in scoring positions and gets shots off in those dangerous positions and he also has good on ice awareness to make passes to open players who are uncovered in scoring positions. But he hasn't been as clean with those passes and he hasn't been able to score the same kinds of goals even though he is in the good positions. I think he might be able to make some improvements in those areas but I do question how much improvement he can make and as a consequence what his production will look like.
What I do think Kastelic is strong at his intercepting passes and stealing pucks. I was really impressed with his defensive game and thought that could amount to something valuable at the NHL level. He will likely get some preseason games so that will be helpful is evaluating where he is in his development and whether he is close or not to being an NHL regular. That should happen fairly soon along with the rookie tournament so we will be able to discuss what progress (or lack thereof) that we see.
