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I'm getting progressively more juiced about this guy. Like, these aren't just "he's big and playing against 17 year old goals". He's a very consistent goal scoring threat against the best professional teams in Europe. He's the real deal.

He scores in a lot of different ways too. I've seen him bury one timers, jam in rebounds, or dangle through defenders. Guys that can score in a lot of different ways usually have more success.

We all did. If you could go back in time and tell me "you'll be getting a hard working middle 6 winger with your 6th overall" I would have told Holland to trade the pick and sign Carl Hagelin. Nice. That was the goalies screw up though. Dunno what he was thinking sliding that far outta the net, but maybe he just couldn't stop himself. Soderblom is fersure bigger than Franzen with softer mitts though

Sodorblom: 2G Edvinsson: 2A

I think when people bring up his projection it’s for two reasons. First, because projections help set fan expectations and that’s relevant to the conversation we are having on LGW. Second, those projections reflect the opinions of more than a few professional scouts, former GMs, and other talent evaluators. It was not unreasonable to come out of that draft thinking we had a player that had the talent level of a top 3-5 pick. That is also relevant to this conversation. Edit: (To address your example) You don't buy stocks based on their price, you buy them based on how you expect them to perform. The price of any given stock is based on it's valuation (i.e. track record of success). Any investment that makes money is a good one, but some are more valuable than others. And you pay more for stocks that are going to make you more money. If you pay a lot for a stock that makes you the same as a cheaper stock, you're a bad investor. So back to your example, a stock that had devalued by 30% (from 100K down to 70K) in three months would be a riskier investment than one that's remained at 70K for those same three months. Similarly, you invest a top 5-10 pick in an NHL prospect because you expect it to perform better than a 10-15th overall pick. These players valuations are determined by everything they've done on the ice up to draft day. Ken Holland picked Zadina thinking he was getting a top 5 talent at 6th overall. Lots of people thought that. And maybe he will be. But it's hard not to think of the stock that dropped 30% in three months when thinking about a prospect who's "stock dropped" on draft day. Zadina, Veleno, Mantha. None of them have been as good as what we thought we were getting because their valuations were flawed in the first place.

Im comparing him to poop your comparing him to the gold standard. A fair comparison likely falls somewhere in between coincidentally right about where Zadina himself would fall. Oil fans wanted Pulju out of town too. Im sure there happy now that Holland wasnt as trigger happy on the young winger. Namestnikov is nearly 10yrs older then Zadina. Some of these players need time. imo Zadina is one of those players.

One is elite the other is not. simple as that. Why not compare him to the rest of his draft class? because hes better then Kotkaniemi, Hayton, Kravtsov, etc. How bout the same pick 1 draft earlier? because hes better then Cody Glass.

He's a #6 overall projected to go top 3. What kind of standard should he be held to? I think this is pretty accurate, which I would consider an underperformance from such a high pick.

First Raymond comp now Datsyuk? I get why some fans are disappointed with these lofty expectations. Zadina shouldnt be held to such high standard. I agree that he needs a much better c than Suter. A 2nd line of Zadina-a+c-Vrana would be dangerous af. A lot of people didnt think Larkin was a 1c now that lazyloaf Mantha was swapped out with a young elite winger everyones tune has changed on Lark. Theres no question hes a 1c. Give Z some capable linemates and he should start producing aswell.

That's awesome! It wouldn't have been so bad for him to end up in Perrysburg or Maumee, but Grand Rapids is literally a ghost town when the sun goes down. We had a family reunion there this summer and family members were the only people we saw from the time we entered until the time we left the town lol.

I do too. Thats why I will reserve my judgement on Zadinas and Rasmussens bust status until I see them play under a new coach.

If what we needed was someone who can play defense as good as Zadina does, and score goals as good as Zadina does, we shoulda just kept Glendening or Helm. Zadina on pace for 12 goals. Helm on pace for 12 goals. Glendening on pace for 20 goals.

Zadina isnt and shouldnt be expected to be on Raymonds level but both have exceeded there draft slot outperformed most 6oa/4oa picks respectively. Its disappointing Zadina isnt scoring as much as we wouldve liked but hes doing everything else real well.