Zaddy
Registered User
- Feb 8, 2013
- 13,058
- 5,850
Lets just keep in mind that the difference in their international production, when prorated to a full season, is the difference between Nick Backstrom and Justin Williams this year.
Yeah, I was gonna say that the difference in production is actually pretty significant.
I didn't say they were equals, just that it was closer than you'd expect. This was from 16/17 season and Zadina was very hyped whereas Kaut didn't receive any talk whatsoever and was basically an unknown until the WJC. The point of my post was that Kaut wasn't really that far behind Zadina when it came to production and by looking on their resumes prior to this season he should've been mentioned as a top50 prospect at the very least, if not as a potential 1st rounder.
They obviously played in different leagues this year so it's hard to compare their numbers this year, but internationally Kaut had 7 points in 7 games at the WJC, Zadina had 8 points in 7 games and at the Euro Hockey Tour against men Kaut had 1 point in 5 games while Zadina had 2 points in 6 games. So again quite similar.
Kaut also has slightly better numbers in the Czech league this year than Martin Necas had in his draft year. (Kaut was 3 months older in his draft year though) but if you compare their U18 numbers from last year (where they both played on the same team and Kaut was actually 9 months younger than Necas) he had slightly better numbers internationally. Necas had 3 points in 5 gamea at the U18 WC and 13 points in 15 games in total at the U18 international level. Kaut had 2 points in 5 games at the U18 WC and 28 points in 27 games at the U18 international level.
Despite this, Necas was getting all the hype last year and you never really heard anything about Kaut. Which is weird to me because both his numbers and the eye test matches up and he's a really, really good prospect but even now he isn't getting the respect he deserves, and that was before this heart problem surfaced (which hopefully isn't a big deal). I think he's going to be a heck of a player in the NHL and teams will kick themselves for passing on him.