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Old 07-11-2019, 12:51 PM   #18
GranteedEV
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Voted Zavgorodny, my reasoning posted in previous voting round:

Quote:
Originally Posted by GranteedEV View Post
Zavgorodny is an interesting one. I see that no one else is quite as high on him as I am, but there's much to like about him:

1) I felt he was the single most impressive Flames forward prospect in preseason. More than Dube or Mangiapane even, despite being 18 years old. A buzzsaw player with a very explosive offensive skillset and some real speed

2) He was one of Rimouski's better penalty killers and also had some absolutely incredible five on five metrics. There's some real two way upside here. Even if he doesn't make it as an obvious producer, he could be a Paul Byron type.

3) Early on in the year, when he was on the top powerplay and the top ES line, he started off on an absolute tear with 26 points in 15 games. Eventually he lost his role to someone else and finished the year on the second powerplay and the middle six at ES, but this seems to have more to do with the fact that Alexis Lafreniere, who plays the same position, is being touted as a clearcut first overall type in the 2020 draft.

4) Unlike Pelletier and Pettersson, he's a right handed shot, which would give him a leg up on all but Phillips in actually cracking our roster and special teams during the Gaudreau/Tkachuk/Bennett/Mangiapane/Dube/Monahan/Backlund/Jankowski "era".

The obvious knocks on him would be

1) Size. No getting around it, he's a smaller player. But so are Pelletier, Pettersson and Phillips.

2) Production. After the hot start he went ice cold. Pelletier and Pettersson seem to have the edge in production last year. I don't see this as a primarily player issue, more a team issue as Rimouski had a LOT of overage players plus the aformentioned Lafreniere. More opportunity should open up next season. And even more still, once we get him into Stockton.

3) Russian factor. I don't really think this one's big... the guy's actually training in Calgary in his offseason, even though he was too injured to participate in dev camp. Who really knows, though.

So overall I've got him ranked at the top of that second tier, just ahead of Pelletier, but I don't expect him to garner many votes other than my own.
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