Quote:
Originally Posted by Roof-Daddy
What about Reilly Smith?
And what's the deal Bjugstad? Is he a flash in the pan or something?
|
Smith had a tough year offensively, but a lot of that was poor luck. His shooting percentage was a full 2% lower than his career average. His confidence took a beating this year, and I think he'll bounce back at least somewhat this year, but I don't expect more than 20 goals and 45-50 points from him. Part of his poor year was the down 1st half of the year from Jussi Jokinen. He also didn't play well defensively with the first significant minus season in his career 5 on 5, but part of that was the ridiculously poor coaching from Tom Rowe as almost every Panther had a bad year defensively (only Barkov and Jagr were in the positive). Had Gallant been given the full year, there's no doubt the Panthers all would have had better defensive numbers.
Bjugstad had ok offensive numbers when he was getting top line time, but now that he's on the 3rd line, he's struggled to score points. He still has talent, and he's a decent player, but he doesn't finish as well as he should, and is plagued by inconsistency. I still like him for his skill set and size, but he's probably a 3rd line center for the rest of his career unless he's playing on a team with poor center depth.
