majormajor
Registered User
- Jun 23, 2018
- 27,506
- 34,201
I'm not saying this is right or wrong, but this is what happens when you jerk around more talented and better players in favor of guys that "work hard" and "play the right way".
He's really not better yet. He's about as good as our #6/7 guys right now. Nowhere near his prime.
I wish we followed the Seider / Edvinsson path with Jiricek. He's not going to be able to deploy his great skills at the NHL level until he gets his strength and skating up to a mature level. He's in bambi mode right now. People see his stature and his upper body strength and don't seem to notice that his lower body and core strength is junior level.
I type this a lot as an Oiler and Czech fan.. but drafting players with elite skillsets and not letting them use those skillsets is a recipe for disaster! To maximize Jiricek, you need him on the PP and getting points. That's his talent. Brent Burn's is a comparable. His weakness may be defending but only playing him at even strength and telling him to defend just means he spends the entire game playing to his weakness.
To maximize Jiricek, you need years on the squat rack and years of skating training.
His decision making in games is not an issue at all. He has great hockey sense at both ends. But he doesn't have the body or the skating to do what he wants to do at the NHL level. He cannot execute against bigger faster opponents.
I'm actually afraid that he'll adapt to the NHL level with his current substandard ability, becoming very cautious and less of a special player. I don't want him to adapt. I want him to get to his prime level and then figure it out. That would require following a path more like Simon Edvinsson. I wish David would compare himself more to Seider and Edvinsson and less to Nemec. I suspect Allan Walsh has been putting bad ideas in his ear.