I love our Filips, they share the Czech spelling of my own name, but in what world is Hronek over Zadina?
As for me:
1. Zadina
2. Hronek
3. Chowloski
4. Veleno
5. Berggren
6. Rasmussen
7. McIsaac
8. Svechnikov
9. Saarijarvi
10. Lindstrom
10.
They call me Fil for short. Lol.
I know he is 2 years older but Hronek was equally as dominant against men in the 2nd best league ion the world. He's highly skilled, fast, intelligent, very competitive, fearless and combative and despite his size and age would hold his own in battles along the boards and in front of the net against bigger, older players and more often than not, he come out on top or getting the puck to a teammate. He scored 8 goals and 18 assists in 37 games (prorated to 18 goals and 40 assists in 82) and his ice-time was compromised by them going with 7 d-men in many of those games. It took the first half of the season for him to establish himself as the team's top defender going from 7/8D to 1/2 D leapfrogging all of the others one at a time after getting scratched for 8 of the first dozen or so games. He seems durable as he hasn't suffered any injuries in his 2 years in NA despite his slight size and combative nature. From everything I have seen and read and heard from his coaches he seems to be a hard working character player and leader. He was the captain of Czech WJC team.
I would say that just an many top 5 picks never end up being impact players as do.