All the Warsofsky hate is pure groupthink. He was a more than capable depth defenseman that can move the puck and retain possession. Helgeson doesn't even come close to Warsofsky. Helgeson stinks.
Helgeson lacks skills to be a full time player at least as it stands now. For spot starts/injury filling, yeah sure. He's not reliable for full time duty even as a #7.
I'd rather Warsofsky than Helgeson for the sole fact that Helgeson has hands of stone and Warsofsky could at least move the puck competently.
I absolutely agree with this. Warsofsky can move the puck and has some offensive potential. Helgeson does not.I'd rather Warsofsky than Helgeson for the sole fact that Helgeson has hands of stone and Warsofsky could at least move the puck competently.
Everyone has a right to their opinion. Some GM's probably share your opinion. But Helgeson will be a regular defensemen in the NHL. Maybe it doesn't happen on the Devils with Shero, but he does have upside. He's not anywhere as bad as the small group of HFboarders here think.
For Warsofsky, he might have more more potential if he was an offense-men, at tops he'll be a Harold.
Warsofsky was a poor man's Peter Harrold.
I absolutely agree with this. Warsofsky can move the puck and has some offensive potential. Helgeson does not.
I respectfully disagree. He will not be an NHL regular, though it depends on what you're definition of an NHL regular is.
A full time spot on the top 6 in the NHL? I think he's every bit as bad as I make him out to be.
Warsofsky might not be, but Helgeson certainly is. I would almost guarantee he is never an NHL regular, at least not for more than a year or two. I've been wrong before plenty of times, but this I am confident of. I wanna know what kind of upside you think he has? Please tell me, I don't see any at all.
Sure, I'll expand. First of all, you seem to be judging a defensemen like an offense men, which is confusing. Warsofsky is small with pretty good hands and puck moving ability. He is easily knocked off the puck and will not be getting better at that anytime soon. If he was an offense men, maybe he'd have some upside.
Helgeson on the other hand is solid defensively, strong in front of the net and as I mentioned earlier, good on the boards. He doesn't make many mistakes, he keeps his game simple. His offensive ability is not his upside. Weird thing is, I've never heard someone say that a defensemen with no offensive ability has no upside just because of that. If he was small like Warsofsky, or didn't use his size, than you'd have a point. But Helgeson does use his size and moves around pretty well. His upside is where it counts, in the defensive zone.
I knew it would come down to his physicality or something.
He's not that good defensively, he's as good defensively as Gionta. Both look good defensively because you don't see them make many blatant mistakes like you see out of Merrill or Gelinas or maybe Tootoo on forward. But they both get killed and pinned in the D zone when they're out there.
Helgeson also handles the puck like your typical grenade handler.
Look, I don't put much into corsi and fenwick on our current team, because everyone has a terrible reading. Except for Josefson among the few names. They all have negatives because how terrible the team was at offense last year. Even Larsson and Greene have bad corsi ratings, and we know they're as steady as they come.
But Helgeson managed to have the worst corsi and fenwick ratings on the team, out of anyone that played more than 10 games AND I was surprised to see he had almost 60% offensive zone starts. Which is like the opposite of Larsson and Greene almost. Those ratings are TERRIBLE.
Pittsburgh re-signed him yesterday.What was the deal on Warsofsky's free agency status? Did he fall into some group whatever UFA category or something? Believe me, you know I'm fine with him being gone.
But he's only 25 and I didn't think was UFA eligible yet, and I never heard about us qualifying or not qualifying him as an RFA.
Pittsburgh re-signed him yesterday.
I saw Pittsburgh signed him again, but was he an RFA or UFA?
I remember the other day, they listed the RFA's we qualified (Josefson, Kalinin, Palmieri) and the one's we didn't (Bennett, Merrill, DSP) and he wasn't even mentioned one way or the other.
I know he's 25, so he should be RFA. But I understand that there's stipulations that allow certain players of that age to be UFA eligible.
Was he a UFA because of one of those stipulations? Or did we choose to not qualify him and thus he became a UFA?
Pretty sure he met whatever qualifications to become UFA.
Hulk brings a quality that our D really lacked last year in physicality. We really didn't have anyone that would lay people out.
Hulk still wasn't good at it, but it was something we really needed. The hope is Santini becomes the big physical Dman we really need to make us tough to play against.
I don't think this is largely even necessary in today's game. Who does Pittsburgh have that does this? Chicago? LA?
A hulk (pun intended) is largely not needed if the unit plays sound defensively. Sure, on occcasion as a spot starter/7th, but its a style of play that has largely disappeared. If Helgeson is on the team full time we've got deeper problems on the blueline than anyone knew.
Hall-Henrique-Palmieri still has me beyond stoked.
I need to start wearing diapers.