C Will Smith - San Jose Sharks , NHL(2023, 4th, SJS)

[Pavel Buchnevich]

No World Juniors I guess. Too bad.

 

[Stewie Griffin]

Scored a nice wrister in his hometown game. Apparently has 150-175 family/friends in attendance.

 

[Pavel Buchnevich]

Seems to be having an okay rookie season, all things considered. Other than Michkov, who many teams screwed up not taking, it's at least looking like they got the right guy, otherwise.

He's no Celebrini, so he's gotten overshadowed this season, but should be a good 2C, and possibly better.

 

[coooldude]

When he has space and time, he can be very dangerous. Very quick release - most of his goals are snipes, but he also has a few goals where he's charging to the blue paint, so good on him for that. And he has set up his teammates for a lot of SOG's, often HDCF.

The major improvement areas are related to his age: 1) he's still immature and forces hollywood passes through multiple players leading to turnovers, or misses critical but simple breakout chips etc. as a winger 2) He needs to be stronger, he loses most puck battles and gets knocked down constantly... and maybe most of all, 3) needs to be faster. EDGE data has him as <50%ile in all skating metrics. He may never be a burner but he's gotta get more speed. If he's never going to have speed, then he needs to get a lot stronger and learn how to play e.g. Pavelski by always being in the right spot despite being slow and short-ish.

 

[CaptainShark]

Great game, he has been trending up lately.

In addition to what @cooldude said, there seems to be another area he has to improve a lot and that is stamina. He is looking for a quick change on most of his shifts and first i thought that was mostly a confidence thing, trying to get off the ice quickly before something bad happens (which happens a lot when he is out there defending). But lately i have gotten the impression, that he just doesn’t have the stamina to keep up on longer shifts. He sometimes just looks like he has nothing left in his legs.

Maybe that is related to point 2) from cooldude as the wall-battles and physical-contact may be even more taxing for him because of his lack of muscle and trying to compensate.

Overall his season has gone as expected. Clearly not ready in a lot of areas, but showing immense skill and upside here and there.

 

[sigx15]

Great game, he has been trending up lately.

In addition to what @cooldude said, there seems to be another area he has to improve a lot and that is stamina. He is looking for a quick change on most of his shifts and first i thought that was mostly a confidence thing, trying to get off the ice quickly before something bad happens (which happens a lot when he is out there defending). But lately i have gotten the impression, that he just doesn’t have the stamina to keep up on longer shifts. He sometimes just looks like he has nothing left in his legs.

Maybe that is related to point 2) from cooldude as the wall-battles and physical-contact may be even more taxing for him because of his lack of muscle and trying to compensate.

Overall his season has gone as expected. Clearly not ready in a lot of areas, but showing immense skill and upside here and there.

Ya this was pretty much everyone's sentiment who watched him a lot last year at BC. It was never a matter of whether his skill level was enough to make the jump. It was always a matter of had he developed enough strength, stanima and speed to make the jump, all 3 of which are pretty much tied together. The other question was whether another year at BC would help him develop defensively and at the faceoff dot. Every kid physically matures at different rates no matter how much off ice work, conditioning and diet they put into it. Smith just seemed like a kid who would take longer to physically mature. As long as he stays healthy, by all reports he has the work ethic, just a matter of his body catching up in my mind