I know he played heavy minutes with some monster players, but that +/- is still crazy.
I realize the Rangers are happy with the progress of Ryan Graves in the AHL, and expect he will have a shot at the big club in the fall. Does Zborovsky also have a chance at making a huge jump, or does he need more seasoning in the AHL?
Appreciate your opinion.
I might be in the minority, but I've liked his game a lot this year. There are a lot of fans in the Rangers section who talk a lot about other CHL players like Gropp, Ronning, Morrison, Fontaine because they are labeled "skilled" and Zborovskiy isn't, but as far as I'm concerned, those players are real long-shots to ever make the NHL. Maybe Gropp has a 40/60 chance, the rest I wouldn't even give a 50/50 chance to get a contract from the Rangers. Meanwhile, I would be very surprised if Zborovskiy didn't have an NHL career. I consider him our best current CHL player, and about tied with Day for best CHL prospect. HM for Gettinger who's not bad either.
Zborovskiy plays a type of game that many of the fans on a website like this or twitter won't appreciate until he shows up with 50% or more CF in the NHL. He will get labeled as the type of defenseman that the league is going away from purely because he's a big defensive defenseman. I've seen many stereotypes of this already from Ranger fans. From what I have watched though, he will play in the NHL, and has a good chance to be a middle pairing defenseman. Yeah, he's big and he will make his mark defensively, but once he gets going, he has fairly good skating. He's not some big guy just lumbering around. I was watching him play last weekend, and I saw him take the puck behind the net, elude an onrushing forechecker, and then elude another one who picked up from where the other guy left off. I've seen him carry the puck behind the net in the offensive zone in overtime when there are less players on the ice, something lumbering skaters would not think to do as they'd get caught out of the play defensively. He's not a fancy puck handler, but he's around average, he's not going to be a liability. I've seen him make a number of really nice breakout passes, and he doesn't get pinned in his zone due to an inability to make quick and accurate passes under pressure. He also has a pretty decent shot.
He's kind of like a righty Marc Staal in his defending, but he's a few inches taller than Staal, and more physical. He's nearly impossible to beat 1 on 1 because he has such a long wingspan, he's very athletic and uses his stick well, along with being agile enough. He does an excellent job clearing the crease, and is usually very positionally sound. At the prospects camp, he was the best defenseman, I thought, and that included some defenseman who were a number of years older than him. He was the only player at that camp from the past two drafts who I thought was very good. He was kind of so-so at the World Juniors, those types of tournaments are like all star games though, and whether its the NHL, NBA, the players who are more defensive style players don't usually make their marks as much in those types of games as a full league season with structured play.
When will he play in the NHL? Probably not next year, but I think he's more of a 1 or 1 and half year AHL guy than 2 or 3. I wouldn't doubt that he could keep up in the NHL defensively next season because he is pretty excellent defensively. His WHL coach who coached in the NHL said he was the best pure defensive defenseman in the WHL, and from what I've watched, I agree, but I think he might need some time in the AHL to learn the speed of pro hockey at both ends of the rink.