His coaches who worked with him everyday claimed otherwise.
I'm really not worried about the defensive play. It is the most coachable aspect of the game. He will never be a defensive stalwart, but he is the best goal scorer in the draft.
Read this exchange from The Athletic article and tell me that this sounds like someone who is self aware.
“Cole, what’s wrong?” he [Coach Fohr of the NTDP] asked.
“Ah, it’s just a hard day,” Eiserman said. “I’m just frustrated.”
“OK, well, what did we do today?” Fohr followed up.
“Well, everything was play away from the puck,” Eiserman answered.
“Correct. Cole, that’s hard for you,” Fohr explained. “For a lot of your teammates, it’s easy for them. When we do the other stuff, when we do line rushes and all the offensive stuff, you like those days, those days are easy for you aren’t they?”
“Yeah,” Eiserman said, understanding where his coach was going.
“Those days are hard for your teammates because they’re not as good at scoring as you are. This is just a weakness of yours. And it’s going to be hard. And it’s OK to be frustrated with it a little bit, but understand that this is just something that we’re working on. You’re going to continue to make mistakes but that’s how you learn,” Fohr finished.
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So yeah, I think it's fair to say that Eiserman's biggest weakness is working on anything other than his #1 best skill, and that weakness is identified by his coaches, and it's even the second defining feature to him after his goalscoring. NHL clubs value coachability and growth mindset because none of these players are a good top draft pick if they're already done developing. Cole is still working on growth mindset and coachability on his play away from the puck, which is a very important part of hockey.
I can't understand why someone would be able to brush all this away with a simple "that's easily coachable." If that were the case, nobody would ever value 2-way play.
As it is, Eiserman is likely to drop and IF he figures out how to grow and value play away from the puck, THEN he has a chance to develop into a value creating goal scorer in the NHL. Since that critical outcome has some warning signs, and his peers in the top 5-15 have shown growth, he may fall and he may fall far.