Quote:
Originally Posted by Enoch Root
Yes, but that was a year ago.
Over this past season, while the other two verified the lofty projections placed upon them, Puljujarvi struggled. He had a pretty disappointing season, relative to the expectations placed upon him.
So that has to be factored into the projections. Calling him a bust is ridiculous. But so is relying entirely on the projections from a year ago.
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Disagree. He projects to be the same player. There is nothing worrying to me that he struggled last year. There's reasons why he did, reasons why I thought he might. He couldn't speak english in his draft year. Couldn't really answer any questions. How is he going to understand the coach? How much harder is it going to make his adaptation to NA? I don't think any less of Puljujarvi's upside after the year he had. He still has the same upside. I always thought he was the least likely of the big 3 that year to excel immediately. His upside is still tremendous.
Quote:
Originally Posted by Enoch Root
Monahan broke into the NHL immediately, and has been an impact player ever since. And even though he may not have been quite as highly touted at the draft as Puljujarvi was, that progression has to be factored in.
I get that there are different criteria that can be considered, and people have their own opinions, but ranking Puljujarvi ahead of Monahan is flat out wrong. Period.
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I don't rank him ahead of Monahan either but I don't think its as controversial as you seem to think. It's one guys opinion, its based on projections of how good they think they'll be at their peak. Saying someone's opinion is flat out wrong period is kind of pointless. You have a different opinion? Great. But there's legitimate reasons why someone could have Puljujarvi ahead of Monahan. I understand people on here are going to favour the Flames player. There's very compelling and solid arguments as to why Monahan should be considered more valuable. I just think you're overreacting a bit to one person's opinion. Would we trade Monahan for Puljujarvi? No, for a variety of reasons. But someone thinking Puljujarvi might be a bigger star when he's fully developed isn't completely outrageous IMO.