Not that I am necessarily optimistic, although I'm far more optimistic with this group than the last group.. just that I feel like we shouldn't hold past sins against a new group and we should give them some time to judge their work rather than allow ourselves to get too down on them because it may not go the way we'd do it, if we were in charge.
Yeah it's odd. To me, it should be an actual blank slate, not waiting until they overcome 20 years of fanbase baggage. I think it's just weird to worry so much about the legacy of the past 20 years as if Gainey/Gauthier/Bergevin were hiring coaches like St. Louis and trading for guys like Dach, or empowering young players like Caufield, Guhle, Barron, Xhekaj, etc. to make mistakes and grow without being benched for bad defensive coverage.
So Leonard plays a real nice, hard hitting power forward ( meaning he has skill for sure) game. He is 5'11" and 190 lbs. He is not going to be able to bowl over people in the NHL like he does now, how much will that affect his overall game ? Just throwing it out.
Eh. Leonard is plenty big for the way he actually uses his physicality. His success with the NTDP wasn't from running around the ice blowing guys up, he initiates contact and uses his edges and hands + explosive skating to create separation. Suzuki is approximately the same size and is perfectly capable of playing physical and using his body to create space where needed (and Leonard is a much better skater than Suzuki too). Lehkonen is around the same size and never had any trouble forechecking effectively or creating separation either. He's not really some big bruiser that relies on crushing people as his bread and butter.
Leonard has a lot of strengths but the most over-emphasized one is his motor and tenacity and his willingness to engage in physicality and break inward -- he won't be able to do that in the NHL.
Says who? As I mentioned above, is Lehkonen some big hulking bruiser? You've brought up Shaw before, he's about the same size or a little smaller than Lehkonen and Leonard too, and Shaw never struggled to engage physically as an NHLer. You don't need to blow people up to create separation, cut to the middle, or play physically, there are tons of players around 5'11 or 6'0 who are very effective forecheckers who use physical play to create space and then skate into it.
Physicality is part of his game, but Leonard is not being drafted "for" his size or to be a "big" player in the same way as Wood or Anderson or Slaf or whoever else we could care to mention. His projection/upside is primarily about his skill/skating/hands, and the physical element is an additional piece which allows him to unlock more value from his skating, shot, and hands than if he were RHP's size and forced to rely predominantly on elusiveness. He's big enough to get a step or a half-step ahead where he'll outskate defenders, he doesn't need to put a defender on his ass every single play to have success.
