Im glad I’m not the only one who thinks he’s annoyingly smug.
I get he's a kid and all, which is why I only pointed out his
interesting personality pre-draft (and immediately after). Would have been kinda stupid for me to criticize him at the time.
But now after seeing the same type of arrogance/lack of self awareness in interviews during a season he is getting his butt kicked, I'm kinda annoyed by it. For example, there was an interview this month where he was asked about the adjustment to the NHL and what he thinks he can improve on and he basically responded with "I think I'm always confident in my game".....
I don't think the Devs have handled his development properly at all either, which isn't helping. As I said repeatedly, he should be eased in at wing. Playing him a C is simply too big of a task for such an undersized kid. Let him learn D concepts on the wing first, where it isn't as complex. It also would allow him to play a more free flowing game with less d responsibility out of the gate. Additionally, I don't like that he was HANDED center, he was HANDED PP time, he was HANDED top line time, he was HANDED 16/min a night out of the gate.
It would be one thing if he was ready to take on these roles, but he clearly wasn't. Hence a non embarrassment of a coaching staff would have made him learn D concepts and eased him along.