Brian39
Registered User
- Apr 24, 2014
- 7,220
- 13,271
Just disregard my general stupidity in this post. Reading is apparently hard for me today.Now I know this is a big long shot, but he did impress at the prospects camp when he was here and he could (slim shot) have a Marchment-like rise as he gets older. He clearly plays an important role for London and seems content doing that. He has skill and apparently sandpaper. Maybe the Blues are doing their due diligence with him to see what the real issue is and that's why they've deferred to sign him at the moment.
I couldn't find any info yet about what exactly was said, but he violated a rule or code of the diversity program and also body checked someone during warm up. For the first offense, like I said, it could actually be an issue that I don't want on this team if it is targeted harassment or a racial remark. Someone hypothesized Sim referred to Hache as soft but used a different word (I'll let you infer). If he truly did call them "soft", then I personally don't really find that a big deal. The second offense is whatever. Sure, don't engage with the opposing team during warm up, but that is far and away the least of my issues with a player who is in the playoffs.
In Marchand's D+1 and D+2 seasons, he had 64 goals and 153 points in 116 games. He had 59 points in 34 playoff games. Marchand was also selected to represent team Canada at the World Juniors twice, putting up 4 goals and 6 points over 7 games in his D+2 season.
Sim had 24 goals and 50 points in 95 games in his 2 post-draft seasons. He has 13 points in 34 playoff games.
We're talking about a massive gap in production at the junior level. Marchand then had 59 points in the AHL during his D+3 season and was just shy of being a point per game player in the AHL in his D+4 season (while doing basically nothing in his first NHL opportunity. He then had 41 points in the NHL in his age 22 season.
Marchand definitely had a late-career surge in his production and effectiveness at the NHL level It is very rare to see a forward have his prime in his age 28-33 seasons. But he wasn't a long-shot, non-junior-standout who took years of pro play to look like he had NHL chops.
Sim is significantly behind the junior-production that you see out of basically every sub-6-footer with an NHL future. And while he is able to play with sandpaper at his size in junior, trying to do that at the pro level is much more difficult at his size.
5'11" is pretty damn small to be a run-around-on-the-4th-line player and the lack of a single 15 goal or 30 point junior season is a decent indicator that he doesn't have the skill to produce at a bottom 6 NHL level in the future. Could he slowly work his way up to an NHL opportunity someday and then find a role as an effective bottom 6 player? Sure. But there are dozens and dozens of guys you can say that about coming out of junior/college every year and plenty of league-minimum vets you can find to be as effective in that role for your team every year. I don't really see much upside beyond that, so I'm not sure what incentive there is to use and NHL contract on him.
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