Buffdog
Registered User
- Feb 13, 2019
- 6,444
- 15,568
Honest question.. how much have you actually watched niku play? As in, how many game minutes?
If I were to be COMPLETELY objective, I would say this about the kid: he's put together a great AHL career. He put up great numbers down there. We haven't seen enough of him yet at the NHL level to know whether or not the skill set he has that has allowed him to do what he's done in the A will translate to the show (in fact, his numbers up with the jets are much worse than potato's, who is the whipping boy du jour in these parts - why does niku get a pass?).
On the other hand, jets management has been around him every day for the past few years. Their eyes have seen every practice and every shift of every game has played. They have a sense for what he's like off the ice in terms of work effort and professionalism. In other words, they have a body of knowledge on him that's a huge order of magnitude larger than any of us. Maybe... just maybe... they know about Sami Niku than the hfboard hivemind.
This place has been littered with petans and postmas and burmis and danos and who knows how many others y'all thought were being held back by jets management only to go on and have the same results when given opportunities in other orgs.
I'm not saying I blindly trust tnse and I'm not saying niku won't have a good NHL career. I'm just saying that there could be more to him that you've seen and there could be good reasons that you are unaware of as to why he's not a full time nhl player *yet*.
If I were to be COMPLETELY objective, I would say this about the kid: he's put together a great AHL career. He put up great numbers down there. We haven't seen enough of him yet at the NHL level to know whether or not the skill set he has that has allowed him to do what he's done in the A will translate to the show (in fact, his numbers up with the jets are much worse than potato's, who is the whipping boy du jour in these parts - why does niku get a pass?).
On the other hand, jets management has been around him every day for the past few years. Their eyes have seen every practice and every shift of every game has played. They have a sense for what he's like off the ice in terms of work effort and professionalism. In other words, they have a body of knowledge on him that's a huge order of magnitude larger than any of us. Maybe... just maybe... they know about Sami Niku than the hfboard hivemind.
This place has been littered with petans and postmas and burmis and danos and who knows how many others y'all thought were being held back by jets management only to go on and have the same results when given opportunities in other orgs.
I'm not saying I blindly trust tnse and I'm not saying niku won't have a good NHL career. I'm just saying that there could be more to him that you've seen and there could be good reasons that you are unaware of as to why he's not a full time nhl player *yet*.