BoneDocUK
Recovering hockey fandoc
- Oct 1, 2015
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I wonder how many points Morgan Barron would have if he had Perfetti’s usage this year….
To be fair, quite a few here have been advocating for Barron to get a chance higher up the lineup to see what he can do there.
Instead, we got Iafallo, who is a great forechecker and pressure player but also a guy who lacks a scoring touch.
I'm a big fan of Barron, and think he can be a very useful digger and shooter on a skill line. But quite a lot of his scoring comes off of turnovers and rushes and while I think he's a high-value player for the Jets, he isn't putting up points at the level of a Perfetti, IMO, even with second (and 4th) line minutes.
Which is fine. Both kinds of player can be important parts of a winning team, and the Jets are lucky enough to have both.
I don't really have a bone to pick here. Perfetti will be back next season and I think he'll be better still. But I agree with many here that roster balance is a feature of all winning teams -- I like Names' game a lot, but I wouldn't want a team full of Names-like players. He also isn't a prototypical old skool 4th liner, since he brings real smarts and skill to the table. FWIW, I see Gus in that mold also -- low-event guy who is always doing a lot right. I think he's a better player than Iafallo, who is much more of a "always busy, sometimes effective" guy who is nonetheless a solid checker/ energy guy, and a whole lot better than the crap we ran for too long.
Agree with @surixon that Perfetti's D game is a strength, not a weakness and has been for a while. That's a situation where numbers are really helpful, because it's easy to see small = weak, contact-shy, easily intimidated off the puck and won't go in the dirty areas, def. But he ain't.
Again, Stats was a slower, smaller guy who had the career he had because of his vision and smarts -- he was where he needed to be at the right time and had a sneaky mean streak. I have complete faith that Cole will get there.