I think Goodrow's puck retrieval has been really solid so far. I could see him working well with Smith at the moment. It'd be better if it also included Wennberg instead of Kunin but we'll have to wait for Celebrini to slot back in.
Goodrow's done some good work defensively and the puck retrieval is okay but the doing something with it part is still a bit shaky and Smith would need that as well to do much with it given his play quality thus far. I agree Wennberg would be a lot better than Kunin. Honestly, if they were to run a 3rd line of Wennberg-Smith-Grundstrom, I think that'd do a lot better. They could do that without Celebrini if Eklund is in the lineup or vice-versa but without both, it's not really possible.
Nobody knows. Week to week. First game back earliest is likely Colorado at home, as he didn't travel. There have been no rumors or updates since he was placed on IR.
It's only three games and two of them were pretty bad and the third one was less bad but still bad. He's not NHL ready and Gambrell was also not NHL ready when he was playing here. There's certainly more hope for Smith. He shows more skill potential and awareness but he's not up to speed yet. He's not going to look this way for that long, imo. But that long to me could still be 20-30 games.
This is the thing - it's clear Smith has the skills and ability to be an NHLer, but it's more him getting up to speed of the game. I don't have many (if any) doubts that he'll get to speed.
I think the NHL is the best place for him since we're in a development season but I do think the Cuda is a viable option for him. He won't learn and develop as much as being in the NHL but a season's worth of experience in the AHL would not be worthless either. If the team wanted to toll his ELC, he's playing at a level that would justify that decision, imo.
Maybe that was it? I don’t remember details but the vibe I got was parent team got pissed that he prioritized winning a minor league award over developing guys for the big club (which I would imagine is the whole point of a developmental league).
I think the real test is going to come next year, maybe in the last quarter of this season. Because that's when we should expect to see not only Celebrini and Smith in the lineup, but also Mukhamadullin, Bystedt (hopefully), and ideally even a few other young guys (Askarov included, though goalie is a different beast).
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I think if he’s not trending in the right direction by his 9th game played he’ll get sent down no need to burn a year off of his contract bit would be stupid to waste it if he’s clearly not getting it
I think they just pulled whatever active roster was listed. So since Landeskog is on LTIR he's probably in there. Don't know for sure.
Considering Colorado is still one of the favorites in the west with landeskog, shows that the big uproar on this board about heights and weights means absolutely nothing if you have talent throughout the lineup.
I'm not sure Colorado alone proves any point. It's notable because they're still a good team and yet they are small. But the other bottom 6 are, ascending: SEA, MIN, MTL, SJS, ANA. After that, EDM although they got smaller this offseason, then NSH, CAR, PHI, and you're into the majority of teams, who average 73.5-74" (6'1.5-6'2"). I didn't share the data to support or counteract any beliefs about size or nationality, I just thought it was interesting to "get to know" the team and league a bit better.
That would cause Couture and Vlasic who both could end up LTIRetired inflating the. Average age of the Sharks.
That's absolutely wild to me that they ended up ending their affiliation with Carolina over this. I hadn't heard that. After reading this article, I started looking into who Carolina landed with and saw Chicago just reaffiliated with them. What a crazy story.
