I did, and I agree with your comments about mobility. I just found the comments about outright speed interesting, given previous statements about other players.
They were just about that how easily other players are labelled as elite skaters, but in Laine’s case if some area of his skating is not top notch (mediocre first steps) he is easily labelled even as a weak skater. But when Niku has mediocre top speed and even acceleration and great agility and smooth looking skating (which by itself means absolutely nothing), then he is labelled easily even as an elite skater.
I wouldn’t think that Laine is definitely an elite skater, although he has really pretty darn good top speed in fact, but as all areas of his skating are not top class, then definitely he can’t be called an elite skater. But neither should Niku’s skating be called elite, when it includes clear weakness, even if part of it is working nicely. Same applies to any other skater really.
And still nothing has changed with my opinion about pure speedskating. But how you seem to be looking for somekind of a mocking comment on that, I can see first of all that you have not understood really my earlier posts about needless speedskating and how speed and skating are way overestimated nowadays. And then without understanding them you start mocking in another topic with that lacking understanding. Reeks a bit of an agenda against me, without bothering really to understand my previous posts, but instead you were trying to point out something based on your own hasty interpretations and on the dislike that you have against the things that I have posted about.
Just to clarify my earlier posts about speedskating, I never said that great skating and great top speed are useless things, but what I have said is that skating is overemphasized over other even more important areas of hockey. A great skater is useless if he does not have good hockey IQ, good passing skills and preferably good shooting and finishing skills. But if a player has all the other areas in good shape and average skating he can still easily be an absolute top class player even nowadays.
Also having more and more of crazy speedskaters with average other skills in the league is also leading to the league having more and more of brainless dump and chase hockey where these woodhanded speedskating grinders are like crazy competing for the pucks by just constantly dumping the puck to the offensive zone.
One of the biggest dislikes that I have against Maurice is how much he emphasizes dump and chase play. I’m not saying that dump and chase should never be used, but still the greatest coaches are in my opinion the ones that try to make their team play with very good and quick passing game in that way that the need to use dump and chase is really pretty much minimized. Maurice seems to be into much more of the use of dump and chase that is really needed in my opinion. And this kind of play has unfortunately become much more popular with the NHL coaches the more overemphasized speedskating admiration has become.
I also have never said that it can’t be useful to have great top speed and acceleration, if you have other great abilities in hockey also, and you know how to use your great speed selectively, and instead of skating like a madman at top speed constantly, you after all realize that you can often play smarter and better passing game by slowing the game down when it’s needed. So many of speedskaters nowadays are completely incapable of doing it, which makes the game look horrible really.
Great skating sure can be a great thing if you are a player like McDavid or Kucherov, but still hockey IQ and passing and scoring skills are more important by themselves for playing great hockey.
It just really seems to me that you have not bothered to read thoroughly my posts about skating, or then you haven’t really bothered to think what I was really writing about. Hopefully this made it at least clear.