arrbez said:
Man oh man....
Rick Nash will be a dominant force at the Olympics, and you can hold me to that.
We will see.
If he is, then I will be the first to applaud him. I, as much as anyone, want him to do as well. I have been waiting for the 2006 Olympics pretty much since the 2002 Olympics ended, and I badly want Canada to repeat their Gold Medal victory from 4 years ago. If Nash can be dominant, and help them accomplish that, then all of the power to him.
But we will just have to see how he does right?
My honest prediction for Nash is that he will either be dominant at the Olympics, or a useless player at the Olympics. We will have to see which direction he goes in, although I sincerely hope it is the former option.
arrbez said:
Nash has 5 goals in the 8 games since coming off the injuries that wiped out the first 2 months of his season. That's a 50 goal pace.
Yes.
But what about the assists? Assists help a team score and win too. And Nash lacks them.
And I know you have went on before about how second assists are meaningless. But even when subtracting half of all players assists (since mathematically, half of a players assists may be a second assist), Nash still gets beaten in points by others who were left off of the team. And these players are also better all-around players, making it even more mysterious as to why they were left off in favour of Nash.
arrbez said:
Stats aside, he's a game-breaking talent, and one of the very elite goal-scorers in the league. Very few guys can score the kind of goals that Rick Nash can.
True enough.
But again, where are the assists. Being an elite goal-scorer is great. But the goal is to help your team score as a whole, and when you can't pass the puck at all, it doesn't help your team score as much as someone who is both a good goal-scorer and a good play-maker (even if they are not 'elite' at either).
But alas, I suppose we will just have to agree to disagree on this one?
arrbez said:
He's not an elite play-maker, but that's fine. We don't need him to be. He's a scoring winger, and the perfect compliment to the elite playmakers we have in Thornton, Sakic, etc.
I understand your point, although I may disagree with it a little.
I am one of the people who thinks that Canada has more goal-scorers on the team than play-makers. I think Canada has far more players who excel as goal-scorers (Iginla, Heatley, Gagne, Bertuzzi, Lecavalier, Smyth, Doan), as opposed to players who excel as play-makers (Richards, Thornton, St.Louis). Please note: I left Sakic out of the list above, because in my opinion Sakic is one of the rare talents who is equally as good as a goal-scorer and as a play-maker.
Thus, they could have used another play-maker on the team, rather than another goal-scorer.
arrbez said:
I'm not sure why you're bringing up Nash's PPG for this season (which was obviously affected by injuries early on), when both Draper and Doan are both have sub-par years by their standards as well.
At the end of the day, it's comparing apples and oranges. In theory, Draper is the best defensively, but won't put up points. Nash is the only one I feel can truly dominate offensively at the Olympic level, but lacks in other areas. Doan is somewhere in between the two. A good two-way player (although you wouldn't know it from watching him this season), but not elite in any way.
I brought up all of their PPG totals for this season because someone else brought up all of their respective points for this season.
Someone else brought up all of their points for this season, in order to show that since Nash has similar PPG than Draper and Doan, that Nash belonged on the team just as much as Draper and Doan do. I was merely responding to this guy.
I know it is apples and oranges to compare the three. That was the point I was trying to make to the person who brought up their point totals for this season. I was trying to tell him that comparing all of their statistics is redundant and pointless because they are all completely different types of players.
arrbez said:
Personally, I'm of the opinion that you can never have enough skill. That's why Nash needs to be on this team.
I know that you can never have enough skill. I somewhat share that opinion (I say "somewhat" because obviously 4 lines of all-offense and no-defense would be overkill).
But anyways, I do think that a team can never have enough skill. However, it is in my opinion that there were other players left off the team, all of which in my opinion are more skilled than Nash. In my opinion, Spezza, Staal, Kariya, Tanguay, and Marleau are all players more skilled than Nash. They are also players who can play the all-around game better than Nash, providing even more reason for why they should have been taken ahead of Nash.
arrbez said:
He lead the best league in the world in scoring at the age of 19, and was dominant beside Joe Thornton at the World Cup last season.
He led the best league in the world in goal-scoring. He was still almost 40 points away from leading the league in points-scoring. And I am someone who values points-scoring more than I value pure goal-scoring. Especially when this pure goal-scorer doesn't even compete in terms of points with players who were left off of the team in favour of him.
Anyways, I do agree with your assessment of him at the World Championships. Hopefully Nash and Thornton can do it again at the Olympics?
arrbez said:
He's young, improving, and will be a fixture for years on the Canadian roster.
True.
But youth, potential, and the future are not good reasons to take a player for a team that is set to compete in 2 months from now.
arrbez said:
As long as he's healthy (which he now appears to be), I can't think of a single reason not to have him on the squad
I can think of a few reasons, all of which I have outlined in this thread and other threads. It is late though, and my fingers are getting sore, so excuse me if I don't feel like typing out all of these reasons in this post?
By the way: Good post. It was well-structured, and actually presented an argument.
