Samsquanch
Raging Bull Squatch
Except when he has questionably and inexplicably been treated differently.
I'm on my phone, but long story short, there was one draft publication who talked about all the qualities and pros of the various prospects. Players ranked much lower than the No. 2/3 ranked Byfield.
When Lafreniére had an underwhelming 2019 WJC, the criticisms against him were "unfair" and scoring a goal was a huge redeeming moment. With Byfield this year, despite being the same age as Laf last year, all those same criticisms are more met with "you shouldn't judge based on one tournament" at best.
I know - DY-1 vs DY, but he is getting treated and evaluated less fairly than others. And I will be happy at how far things have come, but we can still recognize how far we have to go.
This is basically my take on it as well.
Byfield basically was trending perfectly and as good as you can be for a top prospect at his age, until the WJC that is... and it seemed like when a drop of his blood hit the water, there was already a pack of sharks waiting there to start the feeding frenzy...seemed especially harsh to me when the facts were all being considered....
I'm just so curious what those same people were saying about Nathan McKinnon in his draft year after having just as lackluster a tournament as a 17yr old. I think that would be incredibly telling for us all (and we ignore them when they say that McKinnon was in another tier of prospect than Byfield - the evidence speaks otherwise).
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