I watched on the sharks broadcast and wow they rave about us. Its nice to hear how other teams talk about us. Before, it was merely that we were a fun and young team. Now it has an added element of the forecheck. Its nice to hear the change in how we are percieved.
Lately, I've been thinking about how our team is pretty big. We have some smaller players, but all whom play great for their size (panarin, fox, heck even lindgren). Its good for playoffs and if we add correctly I am pretty confident of a deep run, but I have no expectations because I am just happy we are probably making the playoffs- it is now just a matter of seeding.
On schneider: I am not a prospect guru, but I read a lot of reports and occassionaly check out highlights. Once in a while, i'll catch a prospect game (mostly world juniors, dont kill me). I have players I have always been high on (seider, jarvis, admittedly kravstov in thinking hes a steal), but I have never felt more confident in thinking about schneider's ability to play the game. Simply put, he is smart. He doesn't make reckless chases a thing. Watch while paired with nemeth, he would stay and protect the slot while nemeth chased. A normal rookie might make the mistake of closing into nemeth's old side, but schneider is posted there, keeping his man to the outside, while letting shesty see the shots. The sharks had glorious chances, but shesty saw some of them in part to schneider's work. That being said, he is a two way defenseman and one who has a very stable ceiling. Nemeth statistically was always great at defense, just never had the offensive ability. I dont think his d this year is dreadful, i think his ability to skate fast slows him down. Schneider has good speed tbh and that surprised me. He also has great size. I came away impressed before the goal even happened. Nemeth might be stuck with us unless we unload him this deadline somehow. I think he is gone in the summer personally. That means schneider is paired with him and maybe that brings stability because of their abilities to both play the body.
Hear me out- lundkvist has decent stick work but has been outworked along the boards. I like him a lot and think his offense just needs to adjust to smaller ice and thats fine. Give him time. Its okay to not be ready yet, especially when paired with someone whos arguably not an nhl caliber defenseman (hajek and tinordi are definetely not). Jones is someone I view as more ready, but i doubt rangers wanna run two rookies on the 3rd pair. Let schneider get some run time and we might see our first d prospect hit of the three.