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Malik Translates Soderblom Interview Can bench your refrigerator and chills with the boys Sign me up

>2018 >Me: Zadina is gonna be a disappointment comparable to Hudler >Everyone: REEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEE >2021 >Everyone: Zadina is gonna score less than Hudler, but that's okay >Me: Wut?

I still have hope for him. But I saw a lot of these things in the pre-season game against Chicago (the only game I've attended this season). He just doesn't process the game as quickly as someone like Raymond. It was night and day. I don't know how you work on that as a developmental skill. It seems innate, no? Either you've got it or you don't. I don't know that it is a learned trait. And if it isn't, he will never reach his physical potential. As you said, not what you want from #6 Overall.

Myself and @mackel. The local small but vocal minority of Zadina haters. Although the lack of patience with Zadina seems to be growing amongst others this year as well. At least here and on HF boards. I don't follow twitter to closely. You tell me. What are twitter folks pointing at? Fancy stats? If we took the names off the backs of the sweaters I don't think anyone would speak highly of that #11 guy out there who can barely shoot and doesn't score.

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.

His skating isn't as bad as previously advertised and his hands are really good for a guy his size.

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.

Sodorblom: 2G Edvinsson: 2A

I gave up on him being a serious impact player in 2018 when he was with Grand Rapids. I just didn't see anything to make me think he was any good. Granted he was very young on that team, but usually with a young #6 overall pick you're going to see some very raw high level skill shine through and some flashes of brilliance now and then. Saw none of that. Do me a favor and next game JUST watch Zadina. Watch his decision making, execution, time away from the puck, in the D zone, neutral, and Ozone, the whole 9. Lemme know what you think. IMO the most standout feature to his game is his stick lift. His ability to strip the puck is hard to miss. His hands are quick and precise. If you're in his reach or he can close the gap, he's getting that puck. Not quite Datsyukian, but he certainly does this better than anyone on the team IMO. He's also hard worker and back checks hard. You absolutely cannot say this is a lazy player. So why isn't he a defensive dynamo? Because his anticipation of the play is mediocre at best. He has the defensive chops to be a real force, but his brain isn't taking his feet to where he can utilize these tools properly. Datsyuk was able to put his tool box to work because he could read the attacking play before the attackers even knew what the play was. Zadina doesn't have that chess brain. Zadina should be leading our forward group in takeaways with his skill set, but the exact opposite is happening. He has the worst give-away to take-away ration among all of our forwards. 13 giveaways and only 4 takeaways. Now, before you say it, yes, those giveaways numbers are inflated... They're inflated by how many shots he takes that don't even go near the net. He should be called the end board assassin. This takes us to his offense: The skill set is not there. He has a decently hard shot, but he seems to have no idea how to use or direct it. It's bad enough that he and every scout on the Red Wings should be embarrassed that they ever billed him as goal scorer. "Driving the offense" lol sorry but I have to laugh at this. The kid is a primo passenger. He should be in the back of the Wings mini van in a childs car seat. He doesn't get breakaways, he doesn't create rush attempts, he doesn't draw penalties. He's a perimeter player that's easily knocked off the puck. He is decent in the cycle when the zone is spread and set up, his passes are crisp, but - back to his similar problem on defense - he doesn't anticipate the game at a high enough level to make any magic happen with his passing. Which is why he is sitting on 4 total assists right now, all of them secondary assists. And to be fair, he does try to drive the offense sometimes... it just mostly ends in embarrassment when his poorly selected shot is blocked or it flies 2 ft wide of the net. These are the same complaints and praises of him I had in 2018 (check post history of "Christopher Reeves Legs" here and on HF boards). HF boards lit me up for this evaluation back then, with their argument being "he's just young! he's just young!". Guess what? My nephew is just young too. Doesn't mean he has the skills to be a top flight NHLer one day.... youth potential means nothing if you can't at least glimpse that potential in a player. And most concerning is I've seen very little progress from Zadina over the last 3 years. He's going to need an A+ center to feed him easy gifts all game long. Otherwise we have a very average hardworking 3rd line winger on our hands. If you're okay with that result, great. But that's extremely disappointing for a former #6 overall picked ranked in the top3 IMO. Should have packaged him in a trade before the 2020 season started.