Prospects Poll: What do you Look For?

[Hotel Mario]

Mandatory
1) Heart and Competitiveness

Looking for
A) Smarts
B) Skating
C) Physicality/Grit (there are many ways to show grit)

The ideal player has a blend of all the attributes, as long as they have heart, act as professionals, and respect the front of the sweater. Having 2 out of the 3, still is a good prospect is my books.

 

[Darkside Blue]

Some more than others. This board seemed like it had translated from "HfBoards Forums" to "Verbal Arena for Families of Draft-eligible Prospects" for a while there.

I don't really have it in me to get very attached to prospects. The only times I really feel adamant about things are when you get reputations that are flat out wrong, like with Nylander for example. I was pretty neutral at that draft, I remember that I questioned how he'd translate to NHL, but I really didn't like the primadonna rep he got as I found it to be baseless and lazy.

As for what I look for, it depends a lot on the pick range of the prospect. I look at different things at the lower picks than I do at higher ones. But main parts are for sure skill and intelligence, I also like high-end skating but isn't terribly deterred by bad skating. Not as into size as the consensus, and especially not grit.

Do you know where Nylander got the bad rep? Was the Swedish version of Feschunk on his case? Did he have a bad relationship with a coach? Or was it some weird NA urban legend that took on a life of it's own?

 

[Nithoniniel]

Do you know where Nylander got the bad rep? Was the Swedish version of Feschunk on his case? Did he have a bad relationship with a coach? Or was it some weird NA urban legend that took on a life of it's own?

Don't know where it started, actually. Nylander had that period when he moved around a lot and played with his dad which created this notion that he got everything handed to him on a silver platter, and it was just not true.

Here in Sweden we got the whole picture so there was never really any talk like that. I think that's a big part of the reason why he fell, and why we picked him up. Bergmann really seem to get to know those details, not just settle for the first glance of things.

EDIT: Come to think of it, I think we had some of our worse media elements go on a rant against the Nylanders, which was mostly directed at the father and was kind of thoroughly debunked. That's probably where the rep started.

 

[Joey Hoser]

Do you know where Nylander got the bad rep? Was the Swedish version of Feschunk on his case? Did he have a bad relationship with a coach? Or was it some weird NA urban legend that took on a life of it's own?

His hair.

I'm not even joking. That's probably most of it.

 

[Steve]

Assuming we are drafting primarily for "skill level" then my primary goal would be work ethic.

You can't teach skill, the rest can be taught with work.

 

[Mess]

Skill with Size, Skating, Hockey IQ, Compete level, Vision