Quote:
Originally Posted by Parallex
I'll give him a mulligan this year (and this year only) but not for any of those reasons. I'll give him a pass this year because he's young for his level and his whole team is inexperienced (and consequently not very potent). If he shows no significant improvement next year though?... when he and his team will be older and more experienced then I'll be really concerned. I think at minimum our expectations should be a .75PPG player next year and 1.00PPG the year thereafter... that is what Kreider put up and he and Jankowski were drafted around the same slot, came from roughly comparable backgrounds (HS League), and were both drafted on "tools" for lack of a better term. Kreider put forth a better freshman year (asuming no change in what remains) but I'll chalk that up to playing for BC and the 7 month age gap.
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I'm not sure about you, but when I hit my big growth spurt (9 inches in a year) it took me a while to get remotely used to my new limbs. The fact that I kept growing after that (3 inches over the next year) didn't help. Once everything calmed down, it took me another year or so to be able to fully trust and understand myself. I put it all together and it worked out pretty well. I still grew a bit after that, but much slower.
I'm very impressed with his point pace thus far, and if he keeps it up next year I'll be equally thrilled. The real deciding point is going to be his 4th year of collegiate hockey. If he isn't producing around a PPG pace or so (depending on the team around him) then we might have trouble. I'd say we can't really guage him until he's done with the NCAA.