Quote:
Originally Posted by Locke
I'm not as convinced. I dont mean to single you out, but I'm always skeptical when you've got a kid thats huge compared to his peers and thus he dominates, will that translate to the NHL? Has he used his size as a crutch and not worked as hard as he should have to develop the rest of his game?
I just dont know.
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Don't understand this argument at all. He doesn't dominate solely because of his size. He has skill, leadership, character, hockey sense, an elite point shot, etc. And do you think all NHLers are 3 inches bigger than junior players? He's dominating against a lot of kids two years older than him. He'll still have a size advantage at the NHL level. What's the average NHLer? 6'0? 6'1? He's several inches taller and going to be quite a big heavier than the average NHLer. So he'll still have a big size and strength advantage on the majority of players in the NHL. He also proved himself well against the best kids a year or two older than him in the World Juniors this year. He's ahead of the curve developmentally.
Why would you be more skeptical of big, skilled players than small skilled players? The smaller players have a lot more to overcome and prove. Ekblad has NHL size and strength now, how that can be construed as a negative is bewildering to me. It's a strength, it's a positive, it's one of his many good assets. It's not a reason to doubt his game will translate. That's just silly talk.
I've seen this argument a lot on this board and it is completely lacking in logic to me. It shows that you can find a negative wherever you want to find one. Did Pronger's size fail to translate at the next level? How about Regehr? Getzlaf dominated junior when he wanted to and was a man amongst boys. Guess what? He does the same at the NHL and Olympic level. Did Nash bust because he was so much bigger than his peers in junior? Where are all these big/strong, skilled players who are contenders for the #1 pick but failed to translate to the NHL because they only dominated junior because of their size? For how often you see this argument there must be dozens if not hundreds of examples you should be able to provide.
I call BS. Please try and provide some examples of this theory because I can't really think of anybody comparable who failed due to dominating junior because of size. Makes little to no sense to me.