Ok, so on the one post, you say you don't care about scouts, and instead care about posters opinions. But when I give you a rationale for why peoples opinions on him changed you're shifting the goal posts. I was responding to the idea that perception changed based on nothing when no games were being played. It's a false narrative that I've seen you repeat ad nauseam. Scouting services, bloggers ect adjusted their evaluation based on his play during the period from their previous evaluation, fans on the aggregate followed suit as they reviewed those scouting reports and looked into him more.
You've followed that up by indicating you don't seem to like that those who make a career of evaluating talent shifted their evaluations, saying NHL types are not the brightest, while I'm not hear to appeal to authority, I will say that dismissing it is equally fallacious. You telling me your team made what you consider a mistake does not invalidate the results for example, of a scouting poll by MacKenzie, or any other service that thinks highly of Sanderson, many of which went into great detail as to why the ranked guys where they did.
With all due respect, this is incoherent.
You completely misrepresented my viewpoint. I have all along said that with Sanderson there were some scouts, management types, analysts that had him a little higher than the average fan. As I explained, they aren't inherently better than fans at evaluating players. On the fan side of things, outside of the outlier opinion or two, fans did not view him like those who work in the NHL or outside scouting services did at the midpoint of last season and into the shutdown.
At the same time, there were some fans who caught onto this viewpoint of Sanderson eventually, and adapted the NHL/scouting service viewpoint of Sanderson. Making this into one where everyone, except me, including fans, scouts, analysts, management types, viewed Sanderson as a top 5 pick and clear first pair defenseman at the draft is not accurate. There were a number of fans who didn't agree with the initial viewpoint of some within the NHL on him, and then weren't willing to adopt the viewpoint within the NHL for the sake of it, and come up with these highly flawed reasons for such a stark change of opinion.
I'm sorry, but I believe the fans at the draft who thought Sanderson was a top 5 pick and projected safely as a top pair defensemen wanted to be on the consensus side of things within the NHL. They didn't feel comfortable with their own analysis, and thought they better get in line with what drafting teams thought. And the view within the NHL and scouting services for why Sanderson was flawed to begin with, as I explained. If you ask these fans who changed their opinion to actually analyze why they did, they never come up with a good argument for why. It's because they never had a good reason why. They wanted to fit in. They got in line. I don't work in hockey, so I don't know what the response would be to those within the NHL when the flaws with their viewpoint come up, but maybe they'd have a more intelligent response for why they ranked Sanderson so high.
As for what skills Sanderson brings or brought to improve his production, I can't speak to what others said in the past, but he's an elite skater who makes smart passes that drive possession forward, and can skate the puck up ice on his own. His role was focused on the defensive aspects of the game early on in the season but as the season went on he opened up playing less conservative and he saw his role grow into more offensive situations, the easiest way to see your production rise is to be put into situations and roles that are more conducive to production. He's actually following a similar trajectory to Ryan Suter in terms of his NCAA production, a little better so far actually, though North Dakota is a stronger team than Wisconson was, similar production in his final year in the national dev program, what is it about Sanderson that makes you think he doesn't compare to Suter, a guy taken 7th in possibly the strongest draft all time?
This elite skater, smart passes, drives possession, can skate the puck up the ice type stuff could be describing a 4th or 5th defensemen. It doesn't really explain how you are getting 30+ points out of Sanderson's game in the NHL. And let's be up front. The Suter's, McDonagh's, Slavin's that don't have flashy offensive skill but manage to reach 30+ points, let alone 40+, are so few and far between. There are so many players exactly as you described that never bring that level of NHL offense.
It's part of why this argument that his stats are similar to Suter or McDonagh or Slavin at a certain juncture are so flawed. Those guys were outliers. They beat the odds with a skillset no one projected as having definite 30-40+ point offense. And we all know that if you are picking Sanderson 5th, you aren't expecting him to be an outlier. You are expecting that offense out of him.
We know this draft was considered to have a cluster in that 4 to 12 spot, so the claim that he was picked 5th OA for offense is a strawman, just about any player in that top 12 could have gone 5th and nobody would blink an eye, he was picked in that range because of his complete game.
Speak for yourself. I form my own opinions on who should go where. Sanderson was not an option in the top 5, top 10, top 12 for my list. That was too high for what he brought. When taking a defenseman at 5OA though, you expect significant offense. You expect him to project as at least a 30-40 point player, and you project him to be a top pairing defenseman.
Are you correct that the consensus for 4-12 was jumbled? Maybe so, but how is that relevant? If Sanderson doesn't end up anywhere near the outcome some of you project, are you going to reason that 4-12 was a crap shoot? No, why would you? You still expect an impact player at 5OA, regardless of whether or not there was no clear consensus hierarchy.
As for not showing 1/2D potential in North Dakota, we'll have to agree to disagree on that one, he's been trusted in a shut down role as an 18 year old and worked his way into more offensive roles as the season progresses. He's been a standout since day one on that team.
Sure, we can agree to disagree. However, he's currently 8th on his own team in PPG, he was 14th in scoring on his own team in PPG at the world juniors, he doesn't have high-end skill, he doesn't have high-end playmaking, he doesn't have a high-end shot.
He's a standout, shutdown role, working his way into an offensive role. All of those things are good. They could easily be the description of a 20th OA pick who probably projects as a 4D with high end 3D-low end 5D being the realistic range of outcomes. That Sanderson was drafted 5th, and we are still at the same place in this discussion is why I think I'm more right than I was at the draft. If Sanderson had made such a big jump at a certain point last season, we should've seen it by now.