Quote:
Originally Posted by Greyfox
At this point, except for that goof last night, Laine is ahead of Matthews for rookie of the year in most circles.
Laine did say last spring that he should be drafted #1.
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It’s December, there’s a lot of hockey to be played yet.
My thoughts....
- Laine has an incredible shot.
- Scoring in the first two months of the season is a lot easier than after Christmas, teams are playing loose in the beginning and they tend to tighten up their systems at this point of the year.
- You can’t compare a centreman to a winger. Generally, when you can’t cut it as a centreman, you get moved to the wing. The c-man has so many other responsibilities on top of scoring, like faceoffs, quarterbacking the breakout, first man back in the d-zone, puck support for wingers and d-men, and usually does the most skating. A winger can concentrate on scoring alone, without the coach breathing down his neck about his other assignments.
- Laine has the luxury of playing with two seasoned vets, with an outstanding centreman to boot, Matthews plays on an all rookie line.
- Laine has a shooting percentage north of 20%, that is unsustainable over 82 games.
- Matthews has 5 games in hand at this point in time, the numbers are skewed.
- Possession numbers.... (Matthews = 53%) (Laine = 46%)
- Matthews is a much better skater, his edgework is impressive for someone that size.
- Laine is not an elite distributor and his defensive game doesn’t compare to Matthews or Marner.
- Laine’s 43.12% adjusted CF%Rel and -3.5% adjusted CF%Rel rank among the worst marks for rookies.
- Matthews ranks at the top of the league in shot generation, he keeps pace with such monsters as Brent Burns, Alex Ovechkin, Tyler Seguin and Vladimir Tarasenko.
Both Toronto and Winnipeg lucked out in the draft lottery, and they both got what they needed in spades. We won’t know for certain what we have until 5 years from now, comparing them after 25 games is premature.
If all you look at is the surface, you are not getting the true picture of what a multi-tool player provides, this happens all the time in the Norris voting. This is the same conversation we have between Ovi and Sid, one brings much more to the table that doesn’t show up in the score sheet, the same one that keeps winning championships.