Czarnik was good. Looked like a mature 23-24 year old college kid about to play his 2nd year as a pro. Oh wait, I forgot he is. And he's older than Joe Morrow and Seth Griffith. He's just a guy. So is O'Gara. Throw them into the same group with Kempfer, Hunwick, Florek, Bitz etc. New face. That is all. I don't expect much. Certainly not comparable to similar talents 3-4 years younger.
Considering age vs Competition..... DeBrusk, Zboril, and Carlo did well. Didn't expect to see Zboril get leaned on that much defensively. Handled himself well.
Just for clarification, Czarnik is about 3 weeks older than Griffith and Morrow. O'Gara is 5-6 months younger than all of them.
He has exactly one year of PRO experience under his belt....Griffith has three years, Morrow four, and ROG zero.
In his first year in the AHL, Czarnik had 61 pts in 68 games...Griffith had 50 in 69.
Once prospects are at the stage of development that Griffith or Morrow are, they should be better than both the NCAA types that are 1 year out of school (or just coming out), despite being the same age. They have been playing vs Pro competition for the last 3-4 years.
The bad news is that Griffith did not look better than Czarnik, and Morrow did not look better than O'Gara. I'm not sure why you would be holding that against the latter, and I'm not sure why you are so ready to throw Czarnik and O'Gara onto the trash heap at such an early stage in their pro development?
Your point about the younger guys (Zboril, Carlo, DeBrusk) is more accurate, but doesn't really matter in the overall discussion unless someone was saying that Czarnik and ROG were going to be better than those guys over the course of their career (which I didn't see anyone doing). It also doesn't matter if we are talking about guys who might be ready to step up and help the team NOW.
It was only one preseason game, but I thought O'Gara looked pretty polished and was the best of the D-men. He was calm, positioned himself well, and moved the puck. Carlo was very good as well. Had a couple of hiccups, but was more physical than the other D (incl ROG). Zboril was good as well. A couple of TO's, but he looked good, which is what I expected after seeing him at DC this summer. The issue with him is that he's not old enough for the AHL and I'm not sure he's ready for a spot on the big club, with the B's burning off a year of his ELC, and him getting limited minutes. I would not be surprised if O'Gara made the team out of camp and contributed this year. I'm not talking Parayko type stuff, but he could help solidify that D (as could Carlo).
Czarnik's problem is just numbers. He has Bergy, DK, Spooner, Moore, Acciari ahead of him on the depth chart and probably won't see a lot of NHL time this year unless someone is traded or injured. He's not big (obvious), but he's much better defensively than a guy like Griffith and that will help him when it comes to Clode. I'm not advocating the B's deal Spooner, but if he did go in a package for a D-man, I could see Czarnik being the "next man up" and doing OK.
