Quote:
Originally Posted by ricardodw
There seems to be a some consensus in opinion that Hamilton will be worth his contract on the back end. why?
Anyone wants to take a stab at explaining why Hamilton will improve with age?
Brodie was at the Hamilton level of performance at age 23...except he had picked up on how to use his assets to defend. He also needed time to reach critical body weight where he would not be physically dominated in the NHL.
Gio was 24-25 when he started playing as well as Hamilton is now. At 23 he played in the KHL where he worked on his skating. As a smaller NHL d-man he had to put on some muscle mass to be a solid NHLer. Somewhere around this time he decided that being in the top 5-10% in fitness in the NHL was worth the effort (Maybe influenced by Iginla)
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Gio didn't have a 40 point season until he was 27, Brodie was 24. Hamilton had his first at 21 and then followed it up with another one.
At 23 Gio had 16 points in 55 NHL games. Brodie had 28 in 104 games. Hamilton has 126 in 260 games. Hamilton's performance at 23 is years ahead of where Gio and Brodie were.
Why would he get better with age? Why does anyone get better with age? Prime age for forwards may be early 20s but it's pretty common knowledge defensemen really come into their Prime in their mid to late 20s, look at Giordano and Brodie for examples of this.
Experience is what makes for better defensemen because it is a learning process and the more you play the better you can get. To think that a 23 year old defensemen has topped out is just ignoring the common progression of the position. He is years ahead of where Gio and Brodie hit those kind of points totals and nothing has shown me that he is going to be some outlier to a normal progression curve. Sure he may have topped out already but statistically the chances of that are small.