Quote:
Originally Posted by FlameZilla
I can see why Burke keeps bigging-up Ritchie. He looks like a pure sniper (GREAT shot) who has decent wheels and can impose physically on other players. He's like Rick Nash but with Lucic's aggression and strength on the boards. He also has playmaking ability and in that video he executes some beautiful saucer passes (one assist for Cornel at around 2:45 is a beaut).
Players in this mould seem to come along very rarely these days. In our prospect pool we have Ferland – who isn't as big, fast or skilled – as the only comparable. Maybe Poirier, but he's not as imposing physically.
If we were drafting for organisational need I might say that the Flames would favour Ritchie over Draisaitl at #4, simply because I feel Draisaitl is a similar prospect to Monahan (good vision, instincts, stick-handling but not very fast or aggressive). They will draft BPA though, and with any luck that will be one of Reinhart/Bennett/Ekblad.
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No.
And a couple nice saucer passes in a highlight package don't make him a consistent playmaker. If he was he'd have more than half the assists that the consensus top picks managed to rack up. Okay, the speed is there, the size. But he doesn't ooze IQ like the top centers. You have to account for the (massive) size advantage in a league of underdeveloped teenagers. Yet he didn't even produce at a Monahan clip. Before that he had two pretty mediocre seasons in the league that were nothing that really jumped off the page. First year to even break a PPG with 30-50lbs on everyone. Not exactly dominant for someone who, if he had all the tools like these other kids, you think his stat lines would be a little more impressive. I'm very weary of how he performs when the size advantage goes out the window. Whereas the top crop of centers produced some impressive numbers while still having yet to put on another 20+ lbs, which shows me a lot more promise tbh. Also C >>> LW. Especially when it comes to the Flames.