Guy has 1 good season and then can't repeat it and you blame the GM. lol never change. Guy did the same in the Finnish league where he put up 32 points in 48 games and then followed that up with 18 in 52 the following season. Was that also GM biases?
I don't blame the GM for Niemela not repeating his offensive season. An early 20s defensive prospect having fluctuations in his offensive production is not abnormal, and he rebounded last time.
Villeneuve never got into the pre season either I believe and he has just outplayed Niemela on the Marlies. Only person holding Niemela back is himself. He's a small defender who doesn't have the skating ability to make up for that. Needs to get stronger and he hasn't done that either. They've made it clear what he needs to do and that's on him if he wants to or not, not the GM.
Doing something stupid more than once doesn't make it not stupid, and if anything, also doing it to Villeneuve reinforces that it's about GM bias, not anything Niemela did or didn't do. He's done more than enough to be treated better than he has.
It's odd that people have suddenly switched to the idea that he sucks. He's been one of our top defensive prospects; a right handed shot that did well in Sweden and the world juniors, put up 5 points in 7 games in his first AHL playoffs, and then led our AHL defense in scoring as a rookie last year. Even this year, he's second. You shouldn't throw away every 22 year old defenseman that isn't "destroying the AHL".
whole heartedly agree I’m wondering if they trade bacc for him cause he’s better then everyone other than our top pair at the very least him and oel would have looked like him and sandin 2.0
