And Henriks nose got just a little bit bigger. I mean, what's he gonna say?
Sure, he's exagerrating, but in his own sense he's correct in the notion that Nylander is elite.
You can check my posts in the roster threads. After watching him this tournament I’m DONE.
It was a weird season. He wasn't himself for the first 17 games. After that he was producing very well even strength, but he was on a second PP unit that was absolutely dreadful. It held him back. He finally got to play with Matthews again towards the end and they were absolutely great... but Babcock had other ideas. he had to carry Marleau and Brown in the playoffs. That might sound like an excuse, but Marleau and Brown as a forward pairing has an absolutely dreadful impact on offense. It's not just Nylander, Matthews and Kadri had similar struggles with them.
In what sense would you be talking about? overall skill level and potential?
Nylander had a poor season, but he can bounce back.
I have no doubt he can bounce back and fully expect him to but for hank to call him one of the very best in the game, that was clearly a team mate soundbite thing.
A high of 61 points is near elite level? He's at least 20-25 pts off from that and that's a fair size jump. For him to be elite or near elite he would have to be adding bergeron level defense for anyone to be calling him that with 60 point level offensive production and we all know he is no Bergeron defensively.
The way Sweden handled Josi bothered me big time instead of trying to force him down and make him pass they backed of allowing him time and space to escape the zone with the puck under control time and time again. Our fourth line had som success with their forecheck but the rest of our lines especially Lander and Eriksson.. Oy vey they’re way too passive against a team like this its facinating how you can play a team a million times and not try to change whats not working.
I feel we have a 'bronze generation' coming up.. I've been thrilled to see guys like Simon, Vrana and Faksa doing good things. But we're far behind the Big 5. No argument. However, I feel we're ahead of number 7 whoever that is. The Swiss had an amazing few years.. but their NHL draft is yielding very few great players lately. Maybe 10 guys in last 3 years? Obviously Nico is amazing.
I think only 19 or 20 active players have had back to back 60 point seasons through their age 21 year. Most of them will be hall of fame bound one day. Even the outliers were/are really productive for a number of years in guys like Gaborik, Kovalchuk, Filip Forsberg.
I won't argue the skill is there and that he has performed well in the N.HL thus far aside from last season.
I think it's quite obvious that you shouldn't take that literally. However:
"Nylander is one of the best players in the game when he has space & time, the game isn't overtly physical and he plays in one of the best teams against opponents that generally are a bit worse to incredibly worse."
