Welcome aboard K’Andre Staal
Don’t you put that evil on me.
Welcome aboard K’Andre Staal
Don’t you put that evil on me.
Staal was one of our best D for about a decade before injuries started his rapid decline. We should be happy if K'Andre becomes as good as peak Staal.I wouldn't be surprised when it's all said and done, Staal's career turns out to be better than Miller. As disappointing as Staal has been recently, he was a shutdown D-man for many years.
Miller has a ton of upside and I hope he reaches his ceiling though
Well if he became prime Marc Staal, before the concussion and the eye thing, that would be a great pick at 22.Oh god f***ing dammit..
1st Tupac dies. Then Biggy. Then Tom Hanks gets the Coronavirus..
And now K’andre is the next Marc Staal...?!?!
Peace out HFNYR. Was great knowing y’all.
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Seriously when this kid takes the puck up the ice he looks identical to Victor Hedman. He might require a lot of patience from this fan base though, a lot. Miller is only 20, so...buckle up.
We hardly even had to deal with DeAngelo relatively speaking. Imagine this fan base dealing with DeAngelo since he was drafted.like DeAngelo, this may take time. It’s a tricky rebuild with the Zibby, Panarin, Kreider group ready to win, the secondary group still growing and he kids trying to find their way.
13 year NHL career, 892 games. Yeah, I’d take that.Oh god f***ing dammit..
1st Tupac dies. Then Biggy. Then Tom Hanks gets the Coronavirus..
And now K’andre is the next Marc Staal...?!?!
Peace out HFNYR. Was great knowing y’all.
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Stick work, maybe. Staal was killer with the stick. Miller is so big and lanky, he's the same way. Poke checks all day long. People used to get pissed at Staal because he'd use a poke check instead of taking the body. Miller is kind of similar--totally capable of crushing people but he'll use the stick instead.There’s very little other than height maybe that id compare between Marc Staal and KAndre Miller
There is definitely truth to the narrative that K'Andre is raw and needs time to develop, but sometimes I feel like it gets overblown here.
Statistically, he was fantastic in the NCAA:
- Mitch Brown shared this analysis (credit to @GoAwayStaal for posting first) showing that Miller's tranistion defense was literally off the chart.
- EP Rinkside tracked him in the NCAA his freshman year and found he had a 65% Corsi, which again is off the charts good (for comparison's sake, the best in the NHL is 60%)
So the stats offer pretty compelling data points that he was too good for the NCAA, at least in terms of transition defense and driving play.
I've also watched him play 5-6x, both at the WJSS and at Wisconsin, this year and generally thought he was really good and, at times, dominant.
So when I hear people say he's not ready to leave the NCAA because he's a huge project and he's really raw, sometimes it feels to me like they are saying he has been a bad player at the NCAA level and I 100% do not think that was the case.
What I do think is true is that, in order for him to become an NHL player, he needs to improve his defensive positioning, particularly in terms of 1) his positional play in the D Zone and 2) the consistency of his judgment about when to be aggressive and when to be conservative. So, I also think people who are penciling him into the NHL starting line up for next year are getting ahead of themselves. For me, the truth is somewhere in between.
Personally, I think Hartford would be a better place than Wisconsin for him to develop those skills. Both of those things depend on having teammates who cover their responsibilities and provide support, and that was not the case at Wisconsin this year. How is K'Andre supposed to learn defensive positioning when he regularly gets burned even when he's in the right position because his teammates haven't covered their positions? Then, on top of that, he'll also get more reps, better coaching, and be able to exclusively focus on hockey in Hartford.
I also think it's really tough to say how long it will take him to develop those skills. Generally, development isn't a straight line but consists of leaps and stagnant periods. That's been true with K'Andre, who took a huge leap from his pre-draft year to post-draft year when he almost doubled his scoring rate while moving up a league, and then seemed to stagnate from his first post-draft year to his second post-draft year. I could see him taking a leap in a better environment with more reps in Hartford next year or I could see him following a more gradual learning process in Hartford that takes a few years. The key, I think, is not having really firmly set expectations, but just sitting back and letting him develop at his own pace. What makes him such an exciting to prospect for me is that he's already a really good player AND he still has a ton of room to improve.
There is definitely truth to the narrative that K'Andre is raw and needs time to develop, but sometimes I feel like it gets overblown here.
Statistically, he was fantastic in the NCAA:
- Mitch Brown shared this analysis (credit to @GoAwayStaal for posting first) showing that Miller's tranistion defense was literally off the chart.
- EP Rinkside tracked him in the NCAA his freshman year and found he had a 65% Corsi, which again is off the charts good (for comparison's sake, the best in the NHL is 60%)
So the stats offer pretty compelling data points that he was too good for the NCAA, at least in terms of transition defense and driving play.
I've also watched him play 5-6x, both at the WJSS and at Wisconsin, this year and generally thought he was really good and, at times, dominant.
So when I hear people say he's not ready to leave the NCAA because he's a huge project and he's really raw, sometimes it feels to me like they are saying he has been a bad player at the NCAA level and I 100% do not think that was the case.
What I do think is true is that, in order for him to become an NHL player, he needs to improve his defensive positioning, particularly in terms of 1) his positional play in the D Zone and 2) the consistency of his judgment about when to be aggressive and when to be conservative. So, I also think people who are penciling him into the NHL starting line up for next year are getting ahead of themselves. For me, the truth is somewhere in between.
Personally, I think Hartford would be a better place than Wisconsin for him to develop those skills. Both of those things depend on having teammates who cover their responsibilities and provide support, and that was not the case at Wisconsin this year. How is K'Andre supposed to learn defensive positioning when he regularly gets burned even when he's in the right position because his teammates haven't covered their positions? Then, on top of that, he'll also get more reps, better coaching, and be able to exclusively focus on hockey in Hartford.
I also think it's really tough to say how long it will take him to develop those skills. Generally, development isn't a straight line but consists of leaps and stagnant periods. That's been true with K'Andre, who took a huge leap from his pre-draft year to post-draft year when he almost doubled his scoring rate while moving up a league, and then seemed to stagnate from his first post-draft year to his second post-draft year. I could see him taking a leap in a better environment with more reps in Hartford next year or I could see him following a more gradual learning process in Hartford that takes a few years. The key, I think, is not having really firmly set expectations, but just sitting back and letting him develop at his own pace. What makes him such an exciting to prospect for me is that he's already a really good player AND he still has a ton of room to improve.
Dude those college stats are f*cking unbelievable.
Can anyone get a hold of Foxys to see how they compare ?
Love this kid, excited that he's so confident and hope he shines in the A. I wanna see the Krav-K'Andre connection !!