Quote:
Originally Posted by IceBergYYC
He's fine all around. At least to my eyes, he's not a "lights out good" player in any aspect. His shot is fine, his speed is okay, his defensive game is fine, it certainly seems to have improved compared to last year.
My honest assessment of this year is that he is simply very hard working, and doing the right things. He can drive the net, he has a few good shots, some of them get extra lucky, but the main thing is he is putting pucks on net. He is in second place on the team for shots, 21st in the league but a 28.3% shooting percentage is statistically unlikely to continue over the course of a full season.
Realistically he has the ceiling of a bottom six center, though I'd love to be proven wrong one day. As for the reason nobody's clamoring over him and begging the team to give him a shot the way they did for Matthew Phillips? Other than not being a hometown boy, Covid threw a curveball in his development, he lost his full D+1 year, and spent a year in the ECHL, and this is his first year that he's really lighting it up since turning pro. That combo on top of being a 6th rounder, so nobody was even really paying attention to start.
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Kerins strikes me as a guy who really struggles each time he's in a new level of hockey. After his initial struggles, he seems to dominate. I fully expect him to struggle when he plays his first NHL games, but at this point I won't be surprised if he surpasses the expectations anyone's had. On the other hand, I also won't be shocked if the NHL is a step too high for him to preform close to the same way he has in each league.
Man, Kerins succeeding would be such a welcome surprise for the Flames.