I dont remember Adam Oates having a huge rookie year after he graduated RPI. I think he may have even been sent down to the minors. He turned out pretty well.
Would you say that Adam Oates is the exception or the rule?
I'm not out here guaranteeing that Vesey won't amount to anything more than a third-liner in the NHL. I have no idea. No one does. But I think I can comfortably say that he won't be as good as Oates, and that it's far more likely that Vesey is a Conacher than an Oates, or maybe he falls somewhere in the middle and becomes a Bozak.
Who the **** knows? Not me. Not you. Not TheGuarnatee. Not Jeff Gorton.
It's the same point I was making last off-season before and after we signed Vesey. Very cool that we got another free asset. Nothing wrong with that. But people were penciling him in for a 40 point rookie season, and 65 point primes, and it just never sat right with me because history, and precedent, shows that four-year NCAA players who make their debuts at age 23 don't
tend to amount to that much.
Then at the end of October, everyone was telling me to 'eat my crow' on Vesey, because he was shooting 33% Doesn't take a genius to tell you that wouldn't last.
And now I'm seeing the same thing. "Wow, he had a great playoffs, I'm sure he'll build off that for his sophomore season". Maybe he will, maybe he'll just be a 30 point player, too. I don't know. You don't know.
People were calling Kevin Hayes a Joe Thornton lite after his rookie year. Remember how quickly the board turned on him? I do. Kevin Hayes's sophomore season was so above and beyond the rookie campaign that Vesey just put in, too, and the board CRUSHED him after that year.
But I'm the guy who compared Skjei to John Moore when they were comparable, and continues to suggest the Rangers should trade JT Miller because they had a surplus of wingers and a dearth of d-men. How criminal of me. So what the **** do I know. Clearly less than I think I do. You know, for how much weight this board puts into playoff performances, you'd think more people would be on board with that...
Let's check this thread a year from now, and call it a night.