Quote:
Originally Posted by Oil Stain
Bennett has him beat everywhere except puck skills IMO. Puck skills can get you somewhere, but the players that really take over games have more dimensions and Bennett has that game breaking skating which will let him be effective in all areas.
P.S. I don't know why you used Monahan and then a list of prospects that have not made it to debunk the statement that most prospects don't make it. If 7-8 of these guys turn into impact players then you have a point, but not yet.
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Gaudreau probably has the highest IQ out there. That is why he is the prospect you see today, not because he has puck skills. There are many diminutive forwards out there with loads of puck skills that never get a sniff in the NHL.
What Gadureau offers the Flames is not matched by any other prospect really in the system. He has that ability to make plays in-tight, he is an extremely strong possession player, he backchecks - not just 'decently', but I would say very well at this point, and he has a good history of making the players around him better. The last point is what people will start to see more of. Lots of players excel at lower levels at generating their own offence, or even feeding off other players. If you have followed Gaudreau, you will see that he generates offence for others. He is a catalyst, and he has without a doubt the highest offensive ability in the organization. Question marks? Sure, there are big question marks due to his size, but this season will go a long way towards starting to answer those questions.
As for the '7-8' players comment - you are right, until they make the NHL, it is very easy to just write it all off as 'fans being hopeful'. However, us fans have been watching the prospect pool closely for years and years, and there simply has not been this amount of potential in the prospect pool since the 80's. There has always been a few guys that got our hopes up in the past, but there simply hasn't been this many doing this well. I would bet that during the next 2 seasons, we will start seeing many more players not only graduating into the NHL, but starting to become key pieces. What is also nice to see is the different types of players that are showing themselves well at the pro level thus far.
What is really great to see is that these same guys are not one-trick ponies. The skilled guys (like Granlund, Gaudreau, Monahan, Bennett) also have high IQ and are good defensively. The depth-defensive forwards show themselves to have offensive upside (like Knight, Reinhart, etc) and also have high IQ. They all play fairly complete games already at this stage, which is something that you just didn't see in many (if any) prospects coming up through the system in the past. There is size, speed, offensive ability, character and IQ throughout the system now. It is actually a fairly deep system.
I won't guarantee they will all make it, I can't guarantee who will make what positions, but I would be very shocked if there aren't a good number of players graduating into the NHL and contributing very positively, with many being considered part of the 'core'.