Quote:
Originally Posted by Wastedyouth
In his first. 53 GP. Yakupov has as many goals/points as Stamkos and Hall did. I think he'll be alright.
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you can't compare Stamkos and Yakupov AT ALL. Stamkos was buried in Tampa at the beginning of his NHL career when Melrose was the coach, I believe he played about 8 minutes per game in the first quarter of the season. Melrose completely misused Stamkos and didn't give him any opportunities - you can't say the same about Yakupov in his first season, can you? Stamkos heavily improved when Tocchet took over and finished his rookie season with 20 points in his last 19 games. If Tocchet (or anybody else, really) was the Lightning coach from the get go, Stamkos would have had a much better rookie season.