Quote:
Originally Posted by TheScorpion
The AHL is a weird league and hard to look "impressive" in, from a technical standpoint, because it's so much more disjointed. My theory is that's why Walker Duehr actually looked way better in the NHL than he did in the AHL (where he's never impressed me at all), because it's way easier to thrive playing in a north-south system away from the frenzied, mistake-filled nature of the AHL.
I think it can also massively affect finesse guys, too, though. Zary is one whose game really comes and goes in the A. Pelletier thrives because he's both quick and chippy, and he's really good at capitalizing off mistakes. Phillips is like that, too — at 5v5, he scores a lot of rebound goals, tap-ins, etc. It's river hockey. So unless you really take over games by yourself — and almost nobody does at that level — it's hard to "look" impressive on the surface.
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That makes a lot of sense. I don’t fancy myself any kind of NHL talent scout so I pretty much trust whatever smarter people say on the players, it’s just a weird league to watch and then try to match how the players play with how they’re talked about in terms of NHL potential. It’s easy to see why so many guys dominate in the AHL and do nothing in the NHL, or why NHLers go down and are just awful (agree that Rooney looked below average to terrible in every game I watched, I thought he looked better in the NHL).
Fun to watch and I’m going to try to see more this year, but tough to watch with any kind of “eye” on who is ready for the NHL.