You did all that work to clip the quote and failed to read the part where I said "last year," referring to his 18yo season in the NCAA.He'll be 20yo in 6 weeks
The EP guys just don't understand that doing good things away from the puck is also possible. They love puck dominant guys who you can see are doing well without needing to think too hard.
Curious for those of you that know - how much of being a fast skater is mechanics vs athletic ability?
In this sense, I wonder how much growing and adding some weight will improve his confidence in the corners and with puck possession/retention. Almost every game there are pucks that a player who is confident in their size and strength would win, but Smith shies way and tries to make a proactive defensive play. Contrast that with a player like Duehr, who knows exactly how he can use his size to make smart puck plays.
So a possible +0.5Labanc but instead of shooting it's his passing. MG should get something good in a few years if he continues to juice him up and can realize this dude will never be a threat on any serious team.
I think this is a really bad take. He’s a teenager and doing well. He has succeeded at every level. Not sure how he can be just a Labanc. Their progression has been totally different.
The Labanc comparison is just banter, but definitely realistic. I've said I see him more having a possible Huberdeauish ceiling, but the end result between him and the Sharks is the same because players his type, no matter how skilled or how many points, very, very rarely win.
Kevin never had the wheels or the ability to transition. He was never moving his feet and ended up taking far too many tripping penalties because of it. Will isn't a burner but he is offensively instinctive where he can be deceptively quick to move the play the other way.
It's both, just like running fast. As you rise in hockey (sports), there's a constant ebb and flow between getting more explosive vs working on technique. Smith's technique isn't bad at all so for him imho it's mostly getting more explosive. I'm guessing (amateur guess) Potenza will have him on things like power cleans, box jumps, other dynamic strength+power motions so that he's not just adding slow twitch strength with e.g. squats, etc.
Take a breath, pretty much everyone in the past few pages is excited about him except one troll.
To be fair, Patrick Marleau played 1779 games with a 55 pt/season average, while also averaging almost 18 minutes of TOI, and also achieved absolutely nothing the league.
Marleau is always gonna be weird to me, simply because he may be the most disappointing fringe HoFer of all time.
It is pretty hype. I just think how bad this team is made some parts this fanbase really impatient lol
None of this is accurate. The majority of this fan base is very positive on Smith, and even the critics don’t appear to be praying he fails. Moreover, there are many players out there who are better than Smith and still get hate from at least a few members of their fanbase.
