BagHead
Registered User
Rossi has been mostly really good. I love the kid, and I hope he continues to develop well. There's no doubt that he's benefited in his stats from playing with Kaprizov, but it's probably true that Kaprizov has also benefited the other way as well, to a lesser degree. I think Rossi is going to be a damned good center in this league, and no one will worry about his size when he reaches his peak. Blah blah same stuff I've said for 5 years now.Rossi has taken the second most faceoffs on the team at 154 through 14 games, and he's won 50.7% of them. That's slightly better than Eriksson Ek's peak that he finished with last season. Third on the team with 13 points in 14 games. Has points in 11 out of 14 games.
From a guy who looked like he might not be a top six player two seasons ago, he's made massive strides to get where he is now, and he clearly looks like he belongs there. Should still be a lot of room to grow with him.
Point is, there are a lot of guys having a great start to the season, but don't think it can be overstated just how much Rossi's great start is contributing to some of the others. Kaprizov has never had a center like Rossi, even when he played with Eriksson Ek and Boldy last season, Rossi brings a much different profile to the offensive side of the game.
Really like what we have in this guy right now, and I think even if Yurov comes over and they want to keep him as a center, the guy you move down to the third line should be Eriksson Ek. Not necessarily because he's the worst, but because his style meshes more with the third line style this team has historically had, whereas Rossi and [potentially] Yurov would mesh better with the offensive games of Kaprizov and Boldy.
I'm not quite with you on Yurov thing. Yet. I'd want to see what Yurov has first, because I have my doubts he'll be good enough to supplant JEE next year, even just offensively. I think people underestimate JEE and overestimate how hard it is to be a top-6 player right after making the jump.