Speculation: Player Discussion: Will Smith

[Barrie22]

Carlsson and Fantilli are getting more top minutes though and facing better players. Smith is definitely not performing to the level of Fantilli and Carlsson this year. I also think and have consistently said that it doesn't matter, even doesn't matter next year, you just want to see the trajectory. He may even be a VERY slow developer and end up needing 5 years to hit his peak/plateau, who knows.

So he is getting less minutes and less talent to work with (outside of a 10 game stretch with celebrini) and is still only 1 point back of carlsson with the same amount of games and 6 points back of fantilli with 7 less games.

Oh and that doesn't take into account that both of them are 2nd year nhl players and should actually be way farther ahead of Smith at this point in there careers.

 

[coooldude]

So he is getting less minutes and less talent to work with (outside of a 10 game stretch with celebrini) and is still only 1 point back of carlsson with the same amount of games and 6 points back of fantilli with 7 less games.

Oh and that doesn't take into account that both of them are 2nd year nhl players and should actually be way farther ahead of Smith at this point in there careers.

This is the same debate people are having with Celebrini vs. Michkov, the only difference being that the ppg is now firmly in Celebrini's favor.

A guy getting minutes vs. weaker players should be able to produce better than the guys getting top-line matched every game. He's even getting 3rd line treatment with Celebrini and the opposing teams aren't shutting their line down and he isn't really producing.

They were the same draft year, so I don't think "they should be doing better this year" is a good argument against. At any rate, I think that many fans and probably NHL front offices would swap Smith for Carlsson (and maybe Fantilli) in a heartbeat. There's a reason they went before him last year.

We don't need to put lipstick on a pig, he's not having a stellar rookie season. That's OK and we don't have to evaluate him as a core piece for another 2+ seasons.

 

[Barrie22]

This is the same debate people are having with Celebrini vs. Michkov, the only difference being that the ppg is now firmly in Celebrini's favor.

A guy getting minutes vs. weaker players should be able to produce better than the guys getting top-line matched every game. He's even getting 3rd line treatment with Celebrini and the opposing teams aren't shutting their line down and he isn't really producing.

They were the same draft year, so I don't think "they should be doing better this year" is a good argument against. At any rate, I think that many fans and probably NHL front offices would swap Smith for Carlsson (and maybe Fantilli) in a heartbeat. There's a reason they went before him last year.

We don't need to put lipstick on a pig, he's not having a stellar rookie season. That's OK and we don't have to evaluate him as a core piece for another 2+ seasons.

Smith is in the same process that fantili and Carlsson were going through last year. Learning on the fly in the nhl.

Smiths most paired linemates have been kunin, sturm, goodrow, grundstrom. And the only player that has any sort of nhl level offensive talent he has played with is Celebrini.

 

[JoeThorntonsRooster]

Fantilli has like, the worst underlying metrics of any player in the NHL this year. He’s definitely having a worse year than Smith.