Quote:
Originally Posted by TheScorpion
Good timing... Francis has six points (three goals and three assists) tonight. He's now sixth in the QMJHL in scoring, ahead of all of the following players:
Mavrik Bourque
Jakob Pelletier
Hendrix Lapierre
Samuel Poulin
If the Flames aren't willing to give Francis a shot because Darryl likes size, that's their own fault.
|
Big whoop. Did you see the players he's tied with for the record? A regular who's who of "who the #### is that?" Scoring in the QMJHL is not like scoring in the pro ranks. It rarely translates. The deck is already stacked against Francis because of his size, and now with Sutter behind the bench, the deck was just cut in half. He was a low ranked prospect before Sutter, and with the arrival of the new coach, he takes another hit. Small players are going to see their opportunities limited. You can only have so many small players on your roster and the Flames have just too many small to tiny prospects. Expect a change in drafting and signings to align with Sutter hockey. So far we've seen the addition of Walker Duehr (6'3, 211), Yan Kuznetsov (6'4, 215) and Navrin Mutter (6'4, 200) to the Heat, and now Ruzicka (6'4, 202) got the call up to the big team, over Matthew Phillips who has been "tearing up" the AHL by your reporting. Size matters and will become just that much more important for the next two years under Sutter, regardless of how many six point games in the QMJHL a player has.