And you've got people screaming at Torts for not letting Michkov play like this.
Yeah, me too. People called me a homer for saying I preferred Jack Hughes.
I think Bedard has pretty elite processing speed and vision, but his decision making is still really immature, he looks like a kid who doesn't yet know how to play pro style hockey. He makes waaaay too many high risk low reward plays, trying to play hero hockey every time he touches the puck. He just doesn't have the natural physical gifts to pull that kind of hockey off at this level.
Bedard doesn't have that sort of skating, that's the only issue. Will make it harder for him to surpass Jack.
Who is the last young forward that benefitted from Torts tutelage? Patrik Laine came in an instant 40 goal scorer and almost quit hockey.
A bit of an unfair comparison....Kariya was 21 coming into his 2nd year, Bedard is/was 19
He is so wrong. What was Jack Hughes doing at 19? Nobody is afraid of him right now granted, just like no one was afraid of Mack when he was 19
If he was on MN, he would have 50% of the ice time he has now and would have seen the bench a whole lot more in the third period. Stop using the linemate excuse to handwave away any shortcomings and look at his own individual play, its not good enough to be a 1C on a winning team period. That's not to say he won't get there eventually, but he is not a winning matchup player in any sense at the moment and that is entirely on him and the decisions he makes. He needs to get stronger on the puck, better at battles, faster in his skating, faster in his decision making, and contribute more effort when it comes to puck retrievals and defensive coverage. All things that many young talented players struggle with and things that can be overcome, however, most young players do not end up improving all of these issues and that is why true difference maker super stars are so rare.
Who are the young players that benefited from his development? Not really challenging here, because maybe there are several....I just don't know enough. I just think people are pointing to him this year and his benching of Michkov as a great thing, maybe Bedard could benefit form a coach like that, etc. But....who knows how effective he has been.....how will Michkov turn our long term from Tort's development?
lol so a bunch of mid-20 somethings in their primes or literal grinders.
I would say your answer kind of gets to the point though, Torts is terrible at developing young offensive talent. Even the aforementioned Panarin (26/27 when he played for Columbus) was a better player away, than with, Torts.
He was playing much better hockey. Way better underlying numbers and was already an elite puck carrier. Unfortunately, he missed two weeks with COVID after the first 8 games of his 19 year old season, and lost a ton of weight and never recovered. He was a ppg before COVID though, and anybody with functioning eyeballs knew he was way better than his counting stats suggested.
Agreed with the bolded, but he's already played 120 NHL games and really hasn't shown any signs of improving on those types of decisions, which is a bit concerning. I've always maintained he'd figure it out, but if he's not being held accountable for junior hockey mistakes, the extra experience he's getting might be do more damage than anything, especially if it effects his confidence.
Hughes did a lot of skating into the zone and not knowing what to do with it and benefitted from the fact that a lot of the NHL was still catching up with the "skating is everything" hyper meta. . He was also routinely muscled off pucks, was bad defensively, outscored by guys like Pavel Zacha on his team. Bedard struggles 5 on 5 for sure, similar to all the Blackhawks, and is routinely "Son'd" in H2H matchups in a league where everyone can skate really well these days, but he is already one of the best powerplay players in the league. Since Jack Hughes rookie year, Bedard is 12th in league in PPP/60 (minimum 60 minutes). Jack Hughes is 38th. Probably not a stretch to think Bedard can have a "Kucherov" like impact on the powerplay in a few seasons assuming he continues improving and the Hawks get a credible passing threat on the other side beyond like a Teuvo Teravainen.
