I projected Gauthier as a bottom six shutdown center who could take on heavy minutes, important draws, be a great PKer, while being able to minimize scoring chances against with a decent possession game.
He was a slightly above average faceoff man in the Q, what makes you think he will excel at this in the NHL?
He was a slightly above average faceoff man in the Q, what makes you think he will excel at this in the NHL?
Do we really think there's an important role for "face-off specialists" in the NHL? I think a player contributing to a good team has to do an awful lot more than that. Without being able to think and act quickly with the puck, and without enough quickness, players get dominated and pinned in their own end in the NHL as it moves more and more to quickness as a weapon.
Well he's really not just a face-off specialist. He's also a PK guy. Cullen was very important to the Pens last year. Brian Boyle is the one who immediately comes to mind for me though
I thought maybe Adam Lowry was a comparable when Gauthier was drafted, but Gauthier's fallen behind Lowry's trajectory.
Lowry:
WHL PPG: 0.87
AHL PPG: 0.49
Gauthier
QMJHL PPG: 0.94
AHL PPG: 0.32
Meh, barely. Lets not forget he's been playing on a deep Marlies team too.
I don't think reasonable Leaf fans expect much out of Gauthier, if he becomes a staple as a 4th line C for us, then great. If not, then it meant one of our other prospects beat him out for his job. In hindsight, Gauthier looks like a bad pick. But at the time he was expected to go mid to late 1st. There was hope Gauthier was gonna take a jump in offensive production the next year, that just never happened. Oh well, at 21st OA, it's not the end of the world.
Lowry's trajectory in junior was much better than Gauthier's and he carried that forward to the AHL level. Gauthier stagnated in junior - Lowry was the WHL player of the year in his last junior season.
Lowry's AHL team lost in the finals... it was a deep team, too.
Gauthier was behind arguably the 2 best centers in the AHL for most of the season. There really just wasn't any realistic opportunity for him to succeed offensively outside of injury/callups. No (realistic) amount of development would have led to him being played ahead of Nylander or Arcobello, and Sam Carrick plays a similar game but had the advantage of age and experience in the Marlies system.
Maybe I'm missing something with the Moose's roster, but Lowry doesn't seem to have had the same kinds of roadblocks in front of him regardless of how well the team did overall.
He was a slightly above average faceoff man in the Q, what makes you think he will excel at this in the NHL?
Do we really think there's an important role for "face-off specialists" in the NHL? I think a player contributing to a good team has to do an awful lot more than that. Without being able to think and act quickly with the puck, and without enough quickness, players get dominated and pinned in their own end in the NHL as it moves more and more to quickness as a weapon.
Gauthiers value won't come from points anyways so using PPG is useless. There is still a use for good, solid defensive players. If he can get better on FO, that would really help.
Look at the a Flyers and Boyd Gordon. We are very happy to add him for FO and defensive play in the 4th line....despite him only getting 4 points last year. He filled a need we had.
Was FG picked too early? Yes. But he can still be a useful NHLer for many years.
Gauthiers value won't come from points anyways so using PPG is useless. There is still a use for good, solid defensive players. If he can get better on FO, that would really help.
I don't get the hate on him. We are stacked with offensive forward prospects but we have a kid who is elite defensively and good on the draw as well as being huge. These are all attributes that the leafs will need down the road. There is a reason Team Canada chose him two years in a row. Having Mathews, Nylander Kadri down the middle we dont need a ppg center on the fourth line. Gauthier's role will be important taking key defensive zone faceoffs and shutting the other team down late in a game
Who cares about his draft position. Our past management screwed up alot of draft choices but Freddy is still here and i am happy we have him
Draft position does matter because the Leafs could've gotten a better player where he was selected, that's not debatable, that's pretty well set in stone at this point in time.
I agree, I don't necessarily care about the pick because it should fill a future need, but saying the draft position doesn't matter is wrong.
Doubtful he is an NHLer. No more than a 4th liner if he is.
At the time he was picked right around where he was ranked. In hindsight, yes there were better players available, but it wasn't seen as a reach at the time.
If I remember correctly, most people wanted Shinkaruk who is already on to his 2nd franchise. Granted, we'd be ecstatic if we chose Theodore over him.He was a weird one, because he was ranked anywhere from 20-25 on a lot of lists, to out of the top 30 on others. Oh well, like I said, I'm not that cheesed. The likelihood of getting a good NHL player from pick #21 is low regardless.