Quote:
Originally Posted by GioforPM
I guess the league counters disagree. He's not even top 5 on the team. He does have a negative GA/TA ratio for what it's worth.
Gaudreau was called a "giveaway machine" as well. It's a function of playing style a bit.
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Well, I slightly disagree here. I do think that the more you carry and handle the puck, the more giveaways you make. That's expected and normal.
Gaudreau was criticized in his down years, especially when he started doing that button-hook just inside the offensive blue-line. I think that was a function of not having many options, symptom of an incompatible system, etc. You are right however, that puck carriers will always have more giveaways.
However, that's not the issue with Huberdeau. I would watch him and tally how many successful passes he would make in a game, regardless of length or difficulty, and let's just say it wasn't a large number. Lots of those were clean interceptions, or they were too far off the mark either in front or behind, or were in players' skates, which then caused the turnover. Of course the cringe-worthy 'spinorama to nowhere' was happening too often. I counted 'clean' passes, and it was ugly. I remember posting how he wasn't really making even simple clean passes for the most part.
Now? Way better. Much cleaner, and even has connected on some high-skill passes with some regularity. I thought he was below-replacement level, and now he is above replacement level. Hopefully it contineus going in the right direction as it certainly has been.
However, he must have been the worst on the team up until he got paired with Backlund, no? I wonder what the snapshot was at the time.