2018 Prospect Tournament and Training Camp

[Dabura 12,207]

9 minutes ago, The 91 of Ryans said:

Is this the best looking stable of prospects we've seen in 20 years? Serious question. Not meant to be rhetorical either. 

Yes.

[solarion 118]

 

 

3 hours ago, krsmith17 said:

Red Wings just released the Prospect Tournament Roster...

11    Filip Zadina                      RW                              Halifax (QMJHL)                          2018 1st round (6th overall)
21    Dennis Cholowski            D                                 Portland (WHL)                            2016 1st round (20th overall)
27    Michael Rasmussen        C                                 Tri-City (WHL)                              2017 1st round (9th overall)
29    Vili Saarijarvi                    D                                 Grand Rapids (AHL)                    2015 3rd round (73rd overall)
34    Patrik Rybar                     G                                 Hradec Kralove (Czech)              Signed by Red Wings, 5/21/18
36    Kaden Fulcher                 G                                 Hamilton (OHL)                            Signed by Red Wings, 10/3/17
46    Lane Zablocki                  RW                              Victoria (WHL)                              2017 3rd round (79th overall)
48    Givani Smith                    RW                              Kitchener (OHL)                           2016 2nd round (46th overall)
49    Axel Holmstrom               C                                 Grand Rapids (AHL)                     2014 7th round (196th overall)
50    Reilly Webb                     D                                 Saginaw (OHL)                             2017 6th round (164th overall)
53    Jordan Topping               LW                               Tri-City (WHL)                               Signed by Griffins, 7/20/18
58    David Pope                      LW                               Omaha (NCHC)                           2013 4th round (109th overall)
62    Trevor Hamilton               D                                 Penn State (B10)                          Signed by Griffins, 3/28/18
63    Jared McIsaac                 D                                 Halifax (QMJHL)                           2018 2nd round (36th overall)
64    Zach Gallant                    C                                 Peterborough (OHL)                     2017 3rd round (83rd overall)
67    Brady Gilmour                 C                                 Saginaw (OHL)                              2017 7th round (193rd overall)
68    Justin Fazio                     G                                 Sarnia (OHL)                                 Free Agent Invitee
70    Christoffer Ehn                C                                 Frolunda (SHL)                              2013 4th round (109th overall)
73    Marcus Crawford             D                                 Saginaw (OHL)                             Signed by Griffins, 4/3/18
74    Cole Fraser                      D                                 Peterborough (OHL)                     2017 5th round (131st overall)
76    Nicolas Guay                   C                                 Drummondville (QMJHL)              Free Agent Invitee
81    Trevor Yates                    C                                 Cornell (ECAC)                             Signed by Griffins, 3/28/18
89    Pavel Gogolev                 RW                              Peterborough (OHL)                     Free Agent Invitee
90    Joe Veleno                      C                                 Drummondville (QMJHL)               2018 1st round (30th overall)
92    Maxim Golod                   LW                               Erie (OHL)                                    Free Agent Invitee
94    Alec Regula                     D                                 London (OHL)                               2018 3rd round (67th overall)

No Svech, Berggren, Hronek, Larsson, Lindstrom, Hicketts, Turgeon, Sulak, Kotkansalo, Petruzelli...I'm sure I'm missing more.

 

1 hour ago, The 91 of Ryans said:

Is this the best looking stable of prospects we've seen in 20 years? Serious question. Not meant to be rhetorical either. 

Sure is. The upside to the Wings sinking of late is that they're finally getting decent draft position for the first time in decades and the prospect pool reflects this. Plus the Wings cleaned up in the 1st and 2nd rounds of this last draft(Zadina, Veleno, McIsaac, Berggren). Still think the prospect pool for Dmen and goalies is a bit thin, but hopefully next year these are addressed.

[krsmith17 7,191]

1 hour ago, solarion said:

No Svech, Berggren, Hronek, Larsson, Lindstrom, Hicketts, Turgeon, Sulak, Kotkansalo, Petruzelli...I'm sure I'm missing more.

Sure is. The upside to the Wings sinking of late is that they're finally getting decent draft position for the first time in decades and the prospect pool reflects this. Plus the Wings cleaned up in the 1st and 2nd rounds of this last draft(Zadina, Veleno, McIsaac, Berggren). Still think the prospect pool for Dmen and goalies is a bit thin, but hopefully next year these are addressed.

I'm not really surprised Svechnikov, Turgeon, Hicketts, Hronek or Sulak won't be there. They're all established pros at this point. Kind of surprised Berggren, Lindstrom (as well as Kivenmaki and Setkov) won't be there though. I assume they're all training in Sweden / Finland. Kotkansalo, Larsson, Petruzzelli (as well as Pearson, O'Reilly, Adams and Holway) aren't eligible because they went the college route and aren't under contract with the Wings yet. The same reason this will be Pope's first prospect camp. He played his final season of college this past season and signed a contract with the Wings this summer.

[solarion 118]

Ah right...good info there thanks. Kivenmaki and Adams had a great development game I went to, great effort from those guys and highly visible. Also of note Berggren and Rasmussen played great in that game. The guy I most want to see is Filip Hronek though and he's never in any of these things...dangit. Driving all the way to GR to catch a Griffins game isn't very appealing anymore, I'm much closer to LCS than Van Andel these days. Oh well hopefully Hronek gets a look with the Wings soon.

[Buppy 1,720]

8 hours ago, krsmith17 said:

I don't think Rasmussen has displayed "close to" the level of play that Mantha did when he was the same age. Remember those stats I brought up from their draft+1 seasons? I also don't think Rasmussen will be "quite as" good as Mantha over the course of their careers.

I've already said that I believe Rasmussen will be a top six winger. I just see Mantha as our 1LW (30 goals, 60 points) and Rasmussen as our 2LW (25 goals, 50 points). I'd love to be wrong on this. But if I am, I hope it's because Ras exceeds expectations, not because Mantha falls short.

He was the 3rd or 4th best player on his junior team this past season. The stats are there to back this up. I'm not saying that the 2 or 3 players that were better than him, will go on to have more successful careers (I doubt any of them will), but they did have more productive seasons. Plain and simple.

What does thinking we could have / should have drafted a different player have to do with where I project Rasmussen? It has nothing to do with anything... I think Rasmussen will be a top six winger that needs to play with players that can drive offense. I think Vilardi will be a top six (maybe top line) winger that drives offense. The fact that we didn't draft Vilardi, doesn't change how I feel about Rasmussen in any way.

So no, I don't see how any of this could be taken as me having a "notably negative opinion of Rasmussen". I don't at all. You spend way too much time trying to read between the lines and pick out one thing I say, and disregard everything else I'm saying...

Yeah, no.

On 8/5/2018 at 8:59 PM, krsmith17 said:

Maybe not, but we'll see. My point though was that where Mantha may lack a little in tenacity or determination (I don't believe this to be an issue), he more than makes up for it with skill. I don't think Rasmussen has close to the level of skill as Mantha, but we'll see.

No reading between the lines. Nothing there about "at the same age". Didn't even mention that in your initial response. You just backtracked and changed it to "not quite as good". I accepted that, then called you out for exaggerating. Everything since is just your logical gymnastics trying to prove that you meant what you said but what you said didn't mean what it meant and I was reading between the lines by not reading between the lines to assume you meant things you didn't say. Fascinating, really.

For additional fuel: Now you've changed Ras to 25/50, because now you have to put him below Mantha. Earlier you said Ras was ahead of Veleno because he was older, but ignore that Mantha was older in his +1 year than Ras was in his. You say the stats show Ras was the 3rd or 4th best player on his team, while ignoring that the 3 players who outscored him all played 20+ more games and Ras in fact led the team in both goals/game and points/game, and was their best playoff performer by a healthy margin. When Mantha was hurt in camp coming out of junior, you used that to excuse even his dog s*** performance in the playoffs at the end of the year. Ras apparently isn't off the hook for not scoring in games he didn't even play. And are you seriously trying to argue that "best" doesn't mean "better". How the hell can he be 4th best if you're not saying the other players were better? Do you think "best" means "highest total points"? Thinking we should have drafted someone else doesn't mean anything, but saying every time the subject comes up for more than a year does. Even notable loon LW dropped the Tippett complaints after a few months. Now you add something new and suggest that Ras can't "drive offense", which again would imply that you think he's unskilled. 

So there you go, plenty of jumping-off points for your next round of poorly thought out arguments. 

[Neomaxizoomdweebie 3,083]

4 hours ago, solarion said:

 

 

No Svech, Berggren, Hronek, Larsson, Lindstrom, Hicketts, Turgeon, Sulak, Kotkansalo, Petruzelli...I'm sure I'm missing more.

 

Sure is. The upside to the Wings sinking of late is that they're finally getting decent draft position for the first time in decades and the prospect pool reflects this. Plus the Wings cleaned up in the 1st and 2nd rounds of this last draft(Zadina, Veleno, McIsaac, Berggren). Still think the prospect pool for Dmen and goalies is a bit thin, but hopefully next year these are addressed.

Disappointing. One of the reasons to go to the prospect tournament is to see prospects! Hopefully they're at Training Camp tho so I'll at least get to see them there.

[krsmith17 7,191]

 

54 minutes ago, Buppy said:

Yeah, no.

No reading between the lines. Nothing there about "at the same age". Didn't even mention that in your initial response. You just backtracked and changed it to "not quite as good". I accepted that, then called you out for exaggerating. Everything since is just your logical gymnastics trying to prove that you meant what you said but what you said didn't mean what it meant and I was reading between the lines by not reading between the lines to assume you meant things you didn't say. Fascinating, really.

For additional fuel: Now you've changed Ras to 25/50, because now you have to put him below Mantha. Earlier you said Ras was ahead of Veleno because he was older, but ignore that Mantha was older in his +1 year than Ras was in his. You say the stats show Ras was the 3rd or 4th best player on his team, while ignoring that the 3 players who outscored him all played 20+ more games and Ras in fact led the team in both goals/game and points/game, and was their best playoff performer by a healthy margin. When Mantha was hurt in camp coming out of junior, you used that to excuse even his dog s*** performance in the playoffs at the end of the year. Ras apparently isn't off the hook for not scoring in games he didn't even play. And are you seriously trying to argue that "best" doesn't mean "better". How the hell can he be 4th best if you're not saying the other players were better? Do you think "best" means "highest total points"? Thinking we should have drafted someone else doesn't mean anything, but saying every time the subject comes up for more than a year does. Even notable loon LW dropped the Tippett complaints after a few months. Now you add something new and suggest that Ras can't "drive offense", which again would imply that you think he's unskilled. 

So there you go, plenty of jumping-off points for your next round of poorly thought out arguments. 

I don't "have to put him below Mantha", that's just where I project him. What's fascinating is how much it bothers you that I think Mantha was a better player than Rasmussen at the same age, and think he will be a better player in the future. It really, really bothers you...

Mantha was 19 years, 1 month at the beginning of his draft+1 season. Rasmussen was 18 years 7 months at the beginning of his draft+1 season. So yeah, Mantha had 6 months on him. Rasmussen is 9 months older than Veleno. Sorry for not doing the calculations earlier... I really didn't think it was that big a deal. But then again, I don't think any of this is that big a deal...

You're right about Rasmussen having the highest points per game, and I know you won't believe me, because you're you... but that was totally unintentional, honest mistake on my part. I was looking at the wrong numbers. I take back what I said about him being the 3rd or 4th best player on that team. He was likely number one right there with Geekie.

Where the hell is this best not meaning better coming from? Where did I say anything close to that?

I don't bring Vilardi up every time. In fact you're the one that originally brought him up and the reason we're talking about him now. Someone else also brought him up in another thread and my response was "f*** Vilardi, he's an LA King".

As for Rasmussen not driving offense... That's one of the flaws that has been attached to him since we drafted him, and the reason I wasn't thrilled with the pick originally. His 5-on-5 point totals and primary point totals are extremely low. He produces most of his points on the power-play, which is great, but a sign that he doesn't drive offense.

Edited August 8, 2018 by krsmith17

[solarion 118]

5 minutes ago, Neomaxizoomdweebie said:

Disappointing. One of the reasons to go to the prospect tournament is to see prospects! Hopefully they're at Training Camp tho so I'll at least get to see them there.

Yeah, but at least you'll get a look at Smith, Holmstrom, Zadina, McIsaac, Veleno, and Regula. Those are the guys on the roster that I'd be most interested in watching. In the development game I went to Regula made some things happen and McIsaac was having a good game, but got wiped out along the boards and didn't return. Givani Smith is always fun to watch. lol

[solarion 118]

1 hour ago, krsmith17 said:

As for Rasmussen not driving offense... That's one of the flaws that has been attached to him since we drafted him, and the reason I wasn't thrilled with the pick originally. His 5-on-5 point totals and primary point totals are extremely low. He produces most of his points on the power-play, which is great, but a sign that he doesn't drive offense.

That's a fair point about Ras, and hopefully he improves there. He's kind of the anti-Veleno in this regard...where Joey V racks up the primary assists.

[Buppy 1,720]

4 hours ago, krsmith17 said:

 

I don't "have to put him below Mantha", that's just where I project him. What's fascinating is how much it bothers you that I think Mantha was a better player than Rasmussen at the same age, and think he will be a better player in the future. It really, really bothers you...

Mantha was 19 years, 1 month at the beginning of his draft+1 season. Rasmussen was 18 years 7 months at the beginning of his draft+1 season. So yeah, Mantha had 6 months on him. Rasmussen is 9 months older than Veleno. Sorry for not doing the calculations earlier... I really didn't think it was that big a deal. But then again, I don't think any of this is that big a deal...

You're right about Rasmussen having the highest points per game, and I know you won't believe me, because you're you... but that was totally unintentional, honest mistake on my part. I was looking at the wrong numbers. I take back what I said about him being the 3rd or 4th best player on that team. He was likely number one right there with Geekie.

Where the hell is this best not meaning better coming from? Where did I say anything close to that?

I don't bring Vilardi up every time. In fact you're the one that originally brought him up and the reason we're talking about him now. Someone else also brought him up in another thread and my response was "f*** Vilardi, he's an LA King".

Yeah, it's where you project him in this post. Earlier you'd said 30/60, but I'm sure you'll just say that was "max potential", or some other nonsense to make it look like you're not just yanking numbers out of your ass to fit whatever argument you're trying to make at the time.

And it's seven months, not six. And if it wasn't a big deal, why'd you bring it up in regards to Veleno?

I do believe it was a mistake. Just one that wouldn't have been made if you were making a well-reasoned argument instead of trying to avoid admitting that "not close to" was an exaggeration. 

Awful as the wordplay might have been, the "best/better" thing was in reference to this quote; "I'm not saying that the 2 or 3 players that were better than him, will go on to have more successful careers (I doubt any of them will), but they did have more productive seasons." 

So better, but not really better, you just meant they scored more points. But you couldn't say it that way because you said "3rd or 4th best" when you were trying to make him look bad relative to Mantha.

While you didn't mention Vilardi by name, you did take yet another shot at the Ras pick: "for whatever reason they were determined to get bigger last year, even if it was at the expense of getting higher end skill". Let's not try to argue that it wasn't.

Quote

...As for Rasmussen not driving offense... That's one of the flaws that has been attached to him since we drafted him, and the reason I wasn't thrilled with the pick originally. His 5-on-5 point totals and primary point totals are extremely low. He produces most of his points on the power-play, which is great, but a sign that he doesn't drive offense.

3 hours ago, solarion said:

That's a fair point about Ras, and hopefully he improves there. He's kind of the anti-Veleno in this regard...where Joey V racks up the primary assists.

This is why I tried to tell everyone freaking out about the pick last year that they shouldn't make a big deal about one stat from one season. Yet some still formed opinions based on it, and some of them will never change their minds, even though this really wasn't true this year.

While most of his goal scoring comes on the PP, and it's probably fair to think he's a better PP goal scorer than an ES goal scorer, I don't think that's an important distinction. I would suggest it's probably being made more as an attempt to define "driving offense" in a way to make him look bad. His ES goal scoring isn't actually bad. In his draft year his ES G/60 was 1.23. 79th in the CHL, 15th among other 17 year olds. This year it slipped to .99, pretty low, but overall looks to be decent at ES, exceptional on the PP.

Assists however, went the opposite way. Draft year was terrible: .61 assists/60, .31 primary assists/60. This year a/60 was 1.81. Tied for 34th in the CHL. primary 1.27. Tied for 22nd. Still a respectable 65 in the CHL in P1/60. 61st in P/60. 

Overall, just under 41% of his points came on the PP. Comparatively, Mantha's final junior year was just under 37%. Or maybe Mantha doesn't drive offense either. Vilardi was under 32%. Veleno was over 45%. Guess he won't be driving anything. 230th in the CHL in ES P1/60. 

[ChristopherReevesLegs 7,022]

9 hours ago, solarion said:

Ah right...good info there thanks. Kivenmaki and Adams had a great development game I went to, great effort from those guys and highly visible. Also of note Berggren and Rasmussen played great in that game. The guy I most want to see is Filip Hronek though and he's never in any of these things...dangit. Driving all the way to GR to catch a Griffins game isn't very appealing anymore, I'm much closer to LCS than Van Andel these days. Oh well hopefully Hronek gets a look with the Wings soon.

Really rooting for this kid. Glad he looked at home during development camp. Wings really seem to think highly of him despite the small stature. Get em weirdly small Finn bro

[krsmith17 7,191]

7 hours ago, Buppy said:

Yeah, it's where you project him in this post. Earlier you'd said 30/60, but I'm sure you'll just say that was "max potential", or some other nonsense to make it look like you're not just yanking numbers out of your ass to fit whatever argument you're trying to make at the time.

And it's seven months, not six. And if it wasn't a big deal, why'd you bring it up in regards to Veleno?

I do believe it was a mistake. Just one that wouldn't have been made if you were making a well-reasoned argument instead of trying to avoid admitting that "not close to" was an exaggeration. 

Awful as the wordplay might have been, the "best/better" thing was in reference to this quote; "I'm not saying that the 2 or 3 players that were better than him, will go on to have more successful careers (I doubt any of them will), but they did have more productive seasons." 

So better, but not really better, you just meant they scored more points. But you couldn't say it that way because you said "3rd or 4th best" when you were trying to make him look bad relative to Mantha.

While you didn't mention Vilardi by name, you did take yet another shot at the Ras pick: "for whatever reason they were determined to get bigger last year, even if it was at the expense of getting higher end skill". Let's not try to argue that it wasn't.

This is why I tried to tell everyone freaking out about the pick last year that they shouldn't make a big deal about one stat from one season. Yet some still formed opinions based on it, and some of them will never change their minds, even though this really wasn't true this year.

While most of his goal scoring comes on the PP, and it's probably fair to think he's a better PP goal scorer than an ES goal scorer, I don't think that's an important distinction. I would suggest it's probably being made more as an attempt to define "driving offense" in a way to make him look bad. His ES goal scoring isn't actually bad. In his draft year his ES G/60 was 1.23. 79th in the CHL, 15th among other 17 year olds. This year it slipped to .99, pretty low, but overall looks to be decent at ES, exceptional on the PP.

Assists however, went the opposite way. Draft year was terrible: .61 assists/60, .31 primary assists/60. This year a/60 was 1.81. Tied for 34th in the CHL. primary 1.27. Tied for 22nd. Still a respectable 65 in the CHL in P1/60. 61st in P/60. 

Overall, just under 41% of his points came on the PP. Comparatively, Mantha's final junior year was just under 37%. Or maybe Mantha doesn't drive offense either. Vilardi was under 32%. Veleno was over 45%. Guess he won't be driving anything. 230th in the CHL in ES P1/60. 

You actually think there's a huge distinction between 25/50 and 30/60? Players fluctuate that much every single season. I think Larkin will score 20 goals, 50 assists this season. Would you call me out if next week I say I think Larkin will score 25 goals, 55 assists? Probably. You nit-pick everything.

You're right. Saying "not even close" was a complete exaggeration... I have no idea what I was thinking...

Yes, some players play "better", or have "more productive" seasons, but don't necessarily project to be "better" players long term. I know, crazy isn't it...

Tyler Wright has said himself that they wanted to get bigger in last year's draft, and said that they wanted more skill in this year's draft. So yes, for whatever reason, they wanted to get bigger last year, even if it was at the expense of skill. That was more of a shot at the Director of Amateur Scouting, not Rasmussen. Everyone knows I, along with countless other Wings fans, were not thrilled with the Rasmussen pick. However, I said back on the day he was drafted that he was now my favorite prospect, and hope nothing but the best for him. I'm not one of those people that want to see him fail just so I can say "I was right". I'd much rather see him exceed expectations and say "I was wrong".

I don't think he will be as good as Mantha. If he is, fantastic. We have two very good, top six power forwards.

[kipwinger 8,524]

14 hours ago, krsmith17 said:

You actually think there's a huge distinction between 25/50 and 30/60? Players fluctuate that much every single season. I think Larkin will score 20 goals, 50 assists this season. Would you call me out if next week I say I think Larkin will score 25 goals, 55 assists? Probably. You nit-pick everything.

You're right. Saying "not even close" was a complete exaggeration... I have no idea what I was thinking...

Yes, some players play "better", or have "more productive" seasons, but don't necessarily project to be "better" players long term. I know, crazy isn't it...

Tyler Wright has said himself that they wanted to get bigger in last year's draft, and said that they wanted more skill in this year's draft. So yes, for whatever reason, they wanted to get bigger last year, even if it was at the expense of skill. That was more of a shot at the Director of Amateur Scouting, not Rasmussen. Everyone knows I, along with countless other Wings fans, were not thrilled with the Rasmussen pick. However, I said back on the day he was drafted that he was now my favorite prospect, and hope nothing but the best for him. I'm not one of those people that want to see him fail just so I can say "I was right". I'd much rather see him exceed expectations and say "I was wrong".

I don't think he will be as good as Mantha. If he is, fantastic. We have two very good, top six power forwards.

I don't think it's accurate to say that the Wings took Rasmussen at 9 because of his size and regardless of his skill.  While I do think there were better players still available, they didn't "reach" on Rasmussen at all.  The went almost exactly where he was projected to go all season long.  He was always supposed to go 9th or 10th and he did.

[krsmith17 7,191]

6 hours ago, kipwinger said:

I don't think it's accurate to say that the Wings took Rasmussen at 9 because of his size and regardless of his skill.  While I do think there were better players still available, they didn't "reach" on Rasmussen at all.  The went almost exactly where he was projected to go all season long.  He was always supposed to go 9th or 10th and he did.

I know it wasn't a huge reach to take Rasmussen at 9, because he was projected to go around that range by some draft analysts. However, he was projected to go a lot later by others (some more notable than others).

Bob McKenzie (TSN) had him ranked 9th

Craig Button (TSN) had him ranked 21st

Corey Pronman (ESPN) had him ranked 19th

Jeff Marek (Sportsnet) had him ranked 22nd

Ryan Kennedy (THN) had him ranked 10th

"International Scouting Services" had him ranked 10th

"McKeen's Hockey" had him ranked 10th

"The Draft Analyst" had him ranked 23rd

"Hockey Prospects" had him ranked 15th

"Future Considerations" had him ranked 16th

"Dobber Prospects" had him ranked 20th.

In the end though, none of this matters. It only matters where the Wings had them on their list, and he was obviously very high. My biggest issue *at the time* was that a player that was considered a top 3-6 pick by most (a player I really wanted pre-draft), dropped to the Wings and they passed on him. I know several others passed on him as well, but I just think Vilardi would have been the better pick there. We took advantage of two players (Zadina and Veleno) dropping to us this year, it would have been nice if we took advantage of the same situation last year. Oh well, I'm over it. I don't care how Vilardi does at this point, I just hope Rasmussen exceed expectations. So far, so good.

[The 91 of Ryans 3,014]

16 minutes ago, Jonas Mahonas said:

Ras will bust harder than Sheahan.  He can't skate.  In the NHL, you gotta have wheels.

 

[krsmith17 7,191]

1 hour ago, Jonas Mahonas said:

Ras will bust harder than Sheahan.  He can't skate.  In the NHL, you gotta have wheels.

I wouldn't go that far. I think he'll be a solid top six winger. He's also a pretty good skater for such a big player. I don't see that being an issue.

[The 91 of Ryans 3,014]

29 minutes ago, krsmith17 said:

I wouldn't go that far. I think he'll be a solid top six winger. He's also a pretty good skater for such a big player. I don't see that being an issue.

Nah man. He's going to bust harder than a mo f-cker. Harder than Sheahan even. Can't skate don't ya know. 

[ChristopherReevesLegs 7,022]

We've got some capable snipers on the team... Nyquist, Mantha, Zadina, Vanek, AA, FRk...

We've got some capable playmakers on the team... Zberg, Larkin, Nielsen

How many capable power-forwards do we have? Abdelkader?

Ras is going to bring a much needed element to the forward group that we didn't have before. He's probably going to instantly become our best net front player. He'll be keeping defenders, and the goalie, busy down low, giving more time and space to our other skaters. If they don't put a BIG STRONG defender right on top of him down low, he's going to out muscle the small guys for positioning and light goalies up. In the corners we now suddenly have a strong/aggressive forward with long reach and size. It's gonna be great.

[SwedeLundin77 460]

Given the fact that he actually can skate and scouts have said as much since there was some doubt when he was drafted means all these comments about his skating ability are negative fandom BS. Knock it off.

[Dabura 12,207]

Rasmussen's skating has been knocked largely for a lack of "explosiveness" in his first couple of steps. He's worked on it and he's openly acknowledged that it's something he's going to keep working to improve.

I'd put it this way: if you're fine with Mantha's skating, you'll probably be fine with Rasmussen's skating, and if you think Mantha is a little slow-footed, you'll probably feel Rasmussen is a little slow-footed.

Edited August 10, 2018 by Dabura

[krsmith17 7,191]

11 minutes ago, Dabura said:

Rasmussen's skating has been knocked largely for a lack of "explosiveness" in his first couple of steps. He's worked on it and he's openly acknowledged that it's something he's going to keep working to improve.

I'd put it this way: if you're fine with Mantha's skating, you'll probably be fine with Rasmussen's skating, and if you think Mantha is a little slow-footed, you'll probably feel Rasmussen is a little slow-footed.

... if you think Mantha is a little slow-footed, you probably haven't been watching the games...

[krsmith17 7,191]

1 hour ago, Jonas Mahonas said:

I am not impressed by this guy at all.  The boys in the NHL don't play nice with "net front presences".  Rasmussen is a twig.  Seeing Mantha with his shirt off last summer showed me he was willing to pay the price.  I'm not confident that Rasmussen is.  Hopefully he's been lifting like an animal all summer and will come into camp ripped and prove me wrong.

Mantha is 6'5", 225lbs, Rasmussen is 6'6", 220lbs. Mantha is also over 4 years older. Rasmussen is still a teenager. I think he'll be fine. He'll likely add a little more mass to that frame (hopefully not too much)...

[ChristopherReevesLegs 7,022]

1 hour ago, Jonas Mahonas said:

I am not impressed by this guy at all.  The boys in the NHL don't play nice with "net front presences".  Rasmussen is a twig.  Seeing Mantha with his shirt off last summer showed me he was willing to pay the price.  I'm not confident that Rasmussen is.  Hopefully he's been lifting like an animal all summer and will come into camp ripped and prove me wrong.

 

6 minutes ago, krsmith17 said:

Mantha is 6'5", 225lbs, Rasmussen is 6'6", 220lbs. Mantha is also over 4 years older. Rasmussen is still a teenager. I think he'll be fine. He'll likely add a little more mass to that frame (hopefully not too much)...

Yeah but have you seen Rasmussen with his shirt off yet? Until we get a good look at his pecs/nips, we have no idea if he's willing to pay the price or not.

[Dabura 12,207]

2 hours ago, Jonas Mahonas said:

Rasmussen is a twig.  Seeing Mantha with his shirt off last summer showed me he was willing to pay the price.

Mantha is 23 years old. Rasmussen turned 19 a few months ago.

Mantha had to bulk up and didn't reach "optimal bulkiness" until last summer. Rasmussen is thin, like Mantha was at his age. He'll bulk up like Mantha did.

There's no problem here.

[Dabura 12,207]