Quote:
Originally Posted by IgiTang
People talking about Shore being a fringe NHL'er at the moment. Sure. Most 22 year olds are fringe NHL'ers at this point in their career.
We have been spoiled with our prospects as of late and I think people are losing sight of that. Gaudreau, Bennett, Monahan and to a lesser extent Ferland and Granlund are really exceptions to the rule.
Most guys are not NHL ready until they are 25 or so unless they have elite ceilings.
Meat and Potato guys like shore are the "long term" commitment type players that when they stay in the system and develope with the organization, they tend to be quite servicable bottom 6 guys or sometimes jump out to be exceptional talents.
It scares me to think of how people will view guys like Porier and potentially Klimchuk in a year or two. If they arent ready by 22 and 23, they are busts?!..
Not every player that comes through the pipeline are going to be fulltime NHL'ers by 23 and if they arent, they shouldnt be considered a bust.
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A skater that takes till 25 to crack the NHL typically has very limited upside. 4th liner forward or bottom pairing defenseman. It's not normal or average, it's the bottom of the curve. An ordinary contributing NHLer is getting spot-duty or full-time status by 22-23 easily.
This is obviously a generalization and you can point to outliers like Gio.