You'd like to see a guy of his stature do a little more in a lesser league like the OJHL.
I mean, you look at the list of OJHL alum and most of them didn't even spend a whole season there (a lot with little more than a few games). It's not a premier league.
I'm hoping the kid succeeds as much as anyone, but with how raw his skating and defensive game is, and how relatively low his offensive numbers were in such a league, he's a long way off. That's all I'm saying.
In a loong article in The Athletic, they interviewed his coach in the OJHL, Jeff Angelidis, who said that "w
hen he is playing best-on-best in his age group there is no indication that his skating is going to hold him back in any way". You'd think his head coach of two years would know whether or not skating is an issue, and to him it really isn't, no more than any other player who is still growing into his 6'3 1/2" frame.
McBain's GM, Mike Ricci, says "
As a rookie 16-17 year old, his work ethic, his compete level, far exceeded the 18, 19, 20-year-olds on our team at the time. ...The OHL is something that he could have dominated no problem." Seems to me that his own team had not-so-great elements to it surrounding him, and so that can affect stat-pumping. Angelidis says, "
I think he could have dominated more statistically if I let him cheat a little bit but the maturity level of the young man is he didn't want to cheat. Sure, he wanted his points. What teenager doesn't? But he got it - he wanted to prove that he could play the 200-foot game as opposed to cheating and blowing by the D with the puck behind him so that he could pick up the extra point here or there."
It is, as I said, a long article, but really an insightful piece into this kid. seems like an unselfish player who could dominate point-wise if he wanted (I think he averaged over 2 ppg in the playoffs) but was trying to make plays to teammates. Sounds good to me. I am not concerned about him - I think Boston will get his speed and strength up.
