NordiquesForeva
Registered User
- May 30, 2022
- 872
- 998
That's all fair. The main thing in my mind that is a positive with Barzal is that Duchene was generally pretty useful for Canada, and Barzal is a reasonably similar kind of player. Would be nice if he was a better goal scorer. At this point I've written him off for this team and I will be surprised if he's there. There are other options that can bring some extra versatility.
I agree on Duchene. I thought he did an admirable job in 2014. In addition to his C/LW versatility think his skillset, with his speed and play driving ability through the neutral zone, played well on international ice...and to his credit he certainly took advantage of every opportunity to play for Canada internationally which probably helped his reputation with the "powers that be" and got him some reps on international ice.
Barzal is very similar to Duchene. But I think the circumstances of the 4 Nations tournament are much different than the 2014 Olympics...different ice surface, different makeup of the structure of the forward group with (imo) Barzal's primary skillsets being fairly redundant, we're weak on the left side/strong on the right side, etc.. Not to mention Barzal isn't exactly lighting the world on fire, and iirc Duchene was somewhere in the top-10 or so in NHL scoring at the Christmas break in 2013.