Quote:
Originally Posted by New Era
We'll just have to agree to disagree on Monahan. I don't like his skating. He's got a bit of a hitch in his stride and spends too much time of his heels for my liking. This could be from him having a size advantage through out his development and never needing to be an agile skater to succeed. I think players have to be top skaters to be top level players and I don't see that in Monahan. I picked guys that he reminds me of. McNeil for skill set and Neidermayer for the hype. If these comparables are so far off I'd be very interested in hearing who your comparables are. I'd also be interested to hear specifics of why you choose certain players and what Monahan does that is comparable. I won't say you're wrong, because it is our opinion and you have that right to it, but I would like to hear someone explain exactly what the players have in common, other than physical stature.
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Frankly I haven't seen him enough to be able to make strong comparisons. McNeill isn't very skilled from what I've seen and thus the comparison seems unflattering. McNeill looks like a grinding 3rd line centre to me, maybe a slightly more skilled Jason Wiemer. Niedermayer as I posted above was a grinding 3rd line checking winger whereas Monahan is billed as a highly skilled offensive centre.
Monahan is supposed to be quite highly skilled offensively. He wouldn't have been considered a top prospect for this draft for years if he wasn't and I think if scouts were down on his offense he would've dropped drastically this year but he hasn't. Based mostly on what I've read and some of what I've seen I think Couturier seems like a reasonable comparison.
Unfortunately I did not get much of a read on him during my first watch through of the top prospects game and the YouTube clips of him aren't comprehensive enough to be able to tell anything. I'll probably watch the top prospects game again before the draft and focus more on Monahan.
Maybe you are right that he ends up as a grinding 3rd liner but that sure doesn't jive with how scouts have evaluated him so far.