Quote:
Originally Posted by Flames Draft Watcher
I know some definitely won't agree because of player preferences but I would be pretty thrilled to get Tkachuk as well. I think he's the type of player that could make room for a Gaudreau. I think he's the type of player that would compliment our skilled centres, make room for them, finish plays, make nice little passes, get garbage goals, win board battles, screen the goalie, make us harder to play against. He looks like a legit 1st line power forward. Power forwards are always complimentary guys but the work they do is invaluable and so are they. So for me there's 5 guys I'm more excited about rather than 4. People ask if Tkachuk can drive the offence himself. I wouldn't be looking for him to do that based on what I know about his game. He just has to play that complimentary, power forward style game. Crash the net, win board battles, make nice shots and passes in tight. Imagine him with Gaudreau and Bennett, wowza that line would be deadly. Adding Tkachuk would allow us to have a power forward on each of the top two lines if Ferland continues to develop. That would be ideal.
Right now for me its a top tier of 2 guys (Matthews/Laine) and then a small drop off to the next 3 (Puljujarvi, Tkachuk, Chychrun). That said I haven't seen these guys a ton so my confidence on that opinion is so so  |
It's the same argument we had a couple of seasons ago with Ritchie and Ehlers, although in this case I agree with you that Tkachuk or to a lesser extent Dubois or Gauthier would be good to add because they can make space with their size (the other two don't seem quite as physical as Tkachuk). We are at a different stage of the developmental cycle than we were in 2014 when we didn't have enough skill. Skill is still #1 on my list, but the odd thing with the top 4 is that they are skilled while being big/physical enough to make an impact on that side of things (win/win). With Tkachuk, there is a few minor questions about how much skill and is it translatable. His downside is likely in the neighbourhood of Virtanen although I do think Tkachuk is a better player at thinking the game. There still is not enough of a book on him to be able to tell. His playoff run will go a long way to determine things and if he is able to go beast mode then.
Lots of interesting players though, makes it more interesting than in 2014 when there was 4 guys then a whole group of mediocre guys by comparison to the ones ranked 5-12 this time.