Quote:
Originally Posted by Oil Stain
Are Andersson, and Kylington any better than Caleb Jones and Ethan Bear?
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Kylington, aside from his high-end hockey skill/sense (which is damn impressive) - there are good skaters, and there are elite skaters. I doubt there are four better-skating prospects than Kylington out there. It's a year after his draft and I, someone who was originally iffy on taking him at 15, am now dumbfounded that he wasn't taken at 8 or 9 right after Ivan Provorov and Zach Werenski. Kid is a blue chip prospect. I doubt many here would trade him for guys like Chabot, Zboril, Juulsen, and Larsson who were all taken in the 2015 1st round.
Andersson is a beefy body with good skating and excellent hockey sense. I was not sold on him until I saw him skate miles in the playoffs... there is legitimate top pairing potential there even if that's not the objective for him. He's not just an offensive Dman, he's a physical, smooth-skating two-way Dman. Guys with his all-around package... basically you're talking about a guy in the 'style' of Mark Giordano, Justin Faulk, Jake Muzzin, Drew Doughty. That's more than just a defenseman who puts up points. Teams are always looking for guys like that who can influence the game in other ways. I would not go as far as to call him a blue chip prospect, but I would say he's as close as an unfit player can get to that status.
I think Bear is a great prospect, but he's a great prospect like Hickey and Fox are great prospects. 'A' prospects I suppose you could call this group.
I also think Jones is a very good prospect, but he's a very good prospect like Kulak is a very good prospect. A- or B+ prospects I suppose.
You're correct though, that Wotherspoon is not a high likelyhood top 4 D prospect... it's obviously possible but yes there's some merit to your argument that he's closer to the likes of Reinhart, Oesterle et al... classic B prospects But I would argue his NHL stint this year was more effective than either of those individual players' NHL stints were. Although Small sample size, yes.