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Originally Posted by devo22
just checked something out of curiosity: Markus Granlund now has 4 goals and 6 points in his first 10 NHL games. Meanwhile, his brother needed 21 NHL games to reach 6 points and 31 NHL games to score his 4th goal. Not trying to say Markus > Mikael or anything like that, but given that seemingly everybody has always heralded Mikael as the far superior prospect, I found it interesting that Markus has adapted to the NA game faster than Mikael did.
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I think the shortened season and enormous expectations in Minnesota made things more difficult for Mikael. In the NHL he tried to prove that he can be physically involved and defensively reliable and spent a lot of time on his ass and didn't have much energy left for offense.
That changed in the next offseason when he took what he learned and worked intensely on strength, endurance, skating. Probably learned to pick his spots better as a small player too.
Markus being a year younger no doubt benefited from what Mikael learned in his first year in NA - and all this without any huge expectations. They train together in the summer. He is physically stronger than his brother, his game doesn't require as much time and space with the puck, and there's no spotlight on him.