A55P2
Registered User
Yeah, I'm not really on the same page as most of you.
While the turnovers last game were more of an anomaly as he's usually pretty safe with the puck, he's essentially a guarantee to get walked 1-2 times a game. And for someone who's offensive game is so vanilla he needs to be much better defensively to ever be a legit top 4 D. The Emelin comparison is funny because I also always had the same reservations about him as I do Juulsen, yet a lot of people tended to look past those concerns while significantly overvaluing his physical presence IMO.
When Emelin came in the league he was 25. He had 3 seasons in the KHL under his belt and a bunch more in the russian elite league beforehand. Juulsen started last year at 20 and showed much more than Emelin ever showed us, maybe just outisde of his peak when he was playing with Markov. I think the comparison is only valid based on Juulsen's current play, but he showed us that he can be so much more. I don't think you remember all the times Emelin played incredibly dumb defensively, left his position, made bad passes to the opponent's etc. Emelin was not all that steady.