When will Patty O get his respect?

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Sammy*

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Rabid Ranger said:
You're right, what O'Sullivan is doing on the ice shouldn't be a surprise, and based on offensive talent alone, he would have been a top ten pick. The issue surrounded his character and off-ice distractions. Those issues have seemingly died down and if are not an afterthought, not nearly as relevant a concern. In that sense, he is proving his detractors wrong, because those issues are not affecting his performance, or getting in the way of his improvement.

I am highly skeptical that his "off-ice" issues were the the sole reason for his 56th overall pick. I suspect there are some othe issues that are strictly related to hockey playing ability at the NHL level.
 

Rabid Ranger

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Sammy said:
I am highly skeptical that his "off-ice" issues were the the sole reason for his 56th overall pick. I suspect there are some othe issues that are strictly related to hockey playing ability at the NHL level.


Like what? His speed, skill, shot, etc are all top-notch. I guess his defensive play is/could be an issue, but that can be taught. He's not huge, but has decent size, so that's not it either. I really do think teams were scared away because they thought he was a cancer/candidate for a mental breakdown.
 

Vlad The Impaler

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Sammy said:
Guys who light it up in Junior are a dime a dozen. Frankly, what he is doing is no surprise to me, nor do I doubt its a surprise to virtually any of the scouts/GM's who passed him over numerous times at the draft.
IMO, what he is doing now does not prove jack-squat, nor does it suggest all those scouts/GM's were wrong.

It seems the scouting buzz on his talent at the time was very positive, which was pretty good considering this was a deep draft.

It was a special draft and with so much depth, all the teams were banking on different players but things change pretty fast in the scouting world. It's been almost 18 months and rankings can change drastically in a matter of 6 months.

Looks like some team struck gold by passing on O'Sullivan even in the 2nd round. For instance, hard to argue with Boston for taking Patrice Bergeron 45th overall. However, right now I'm 100% sure some teams would reconsider and pick Patrick in the second round and some might even prefer him to their first round selections as of today.

You're right that statistically, it's probably not that big of a surprise for many but all the reports point to added maturity. He seems to be taking charge and making a difference for his team.

The negative reports on his attitude are disappearing slowly. You have to think some teams passed him not because of his on-ice ability but because of potential off-ice issues and maybe getting a player who isn't "coachable". So just by avoiding these issues, Patrick's stock is rising, IMO.

56th was too low for him then and right now, it's looking worse for some of the teams who ignored him.
 

Sammy*

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Rabid Ranger said:
Like what? His speed, skill, shot, etc are all top-notch. I guess his defensive play is/could be an issue, but that can be taught. He's not huge, but has decent size, so that's not it either. I really do think teams were scared away because they thought he was a cancer/candidate for a mental breakdown.
I dont buy it. If hes a top ten talent but he has off -ice issues he drops into the 20's somewhere, imo. Frick, the guys picked in the 20's are unlikely to play regularly in the NHl in any event.
 

thestonedkoala

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Not necessarily, what O'Sullivan went through was tremendously devastating for him and some teams were cautious about it. Look at Schremp this year and O'Sullivan in a deep draft.

I believe for a while he slowly started dropping because of these off-ice issues that were a little overblown but I also believe that these scouts had reasons but now they look like they've gone overboard and made a mistake. Teams not only passed on him one or two times but three or four times...
 

Mizral

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O'Sullivan won me over last year, but Carter over O'Sullivan for me is a no-brainer. While in the OHL it's harder to see, but Carter's size is going to open a lot of offensive opportunities that O'Sullivan is never going to see because of the size difference. Not to mention that Carter's game is very.. how shall I put this.. translatable to the NHL. Not that O'Sullivan's isn't, but he does get plenty of his points from the regular old OHL stuff that doesn't happen in the pros (totally botched checks, poor defensive converege, yadda yadda yadda).

This isn't to slight O'Sullivan though. This kid obviously has top line potential.
 

thestonedkoala

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I think the 'poor defensive coverage' has been slightly worked on and will be continued to be worked on when O'Sullivan gets to Minnesota.
 

jcpenny

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For my part, ive only seen him play during the 2004 WJC and i was looking foward to see him play. Lets say that besides that goal against Canada he didnt impressed me at all. Even during the the semi final against Finland he was barely noticable. But two games dont make a career.
 

MePutPuckInNet

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but he had a horrible WJC tournament [other than the Gold Medal game] and I think you'd be extremely remiss in judging him on that. Also, doobiedoo - you keep saying O'Sullivan's had a "slight" improvement defensively...but, dude - his defensive improvement is tremendous. He's been a much more physical player, laying out hits [which result in opponents coughing up the puck and several goals for the Icedogs] - hell, the kid even had a 5 minute major and was ejected for a game misconduct the other night [not that THAT was a good thing, of course]....but, what I'm saying is, his defensive side has vastly improved....he also leads his team in the +/- department with a +12.

I have NO idea, Jay, how you can say that Carter's game is more "translatable" to the NHL. I mean....Carter's game isn't very good even by OHL standards.....so how do you come up with that??Of course, you're entitled to your opinion - I just don't know what you're basing that on.

Anyway, of course O'Sullivan - along with ALL prospects - hasn't "proved" he can play at the NHL level. I agree with that. But, I believe he has proved he has NHL level SKILLS. Something, I absolutely do not believe Jeff Carter has proved.

As for what caused Patrick to fall so far in the '03 draft. It's simple. The interviews absolutely KILLED him. They were so awful in fact, some were truly painful to watch. I've seen a few tapes, try to believe me when I tell you that after seeing them even I - although I'm a huge supporter of O'Sullivan's - would definitely wonder about the kid. Unfortunately, his communication skills -in that kind of a stressful environment - sucked beyond imagination. [although he's been working on that, too]
 

JeSuisReine

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was just listening to the icedogs/greyhounds game, (decent game too) and anyway, a few interesting quotes from the announcer:
"O'Sullivan gets away from a check, great puck control there as he had three greyhounds on him"

and I have heard a lot in the game this: "O'Sullivan ties up Carter" seriously...over and over again, when Sully is on the ice with Carter it sounds like he is doing a pretty good job of shutting him down. (haven't heard that the other way tho...and the broadcast is out of SSM...I mean, I can't see whats going on, obviously, just sharing what the announcer is saying)
 
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