themalikreport.com
Yeah, I guess we see it a bit differently and that makes it more interesting but in essence we agree that there are offensive tools that he still needs to develop. This is based on the games I've seen recently and also his draft year. For example, I personally think his shot is really good but he just doesn't know how to use it effectively yet, but we see glimpses of good usage here and there.
My personal take is that his problems offensively are more confidence based than reads/creativity. I think he often will funnel pucks towards the goal, dump it, take the easy lane to the outside or make a short pass over a more risky but rewarding play because he's not sure if he might turn it over. Whereas when he looks down ice for a long breakout pass, has time to get on his high horse and lead a rush or take a second to really leans into a slapshot, I think he's confident enough to make that play because he's had time to evaluate that it's safe to try. If he's not sure, he just does the easy thing. The irony is that sometimes when someone is really dogging him and a safe play isn't available, that's when you'll see him pull out his best moves because risky but rewarding is all he has to choose from.
Another point: I think he was much better with the puck in the cancelled WJC so that's a good thing to keep in mind.
Edvinsson had quite a terrible tournament but that's just that: a tournament and a summer one at that. He had health issues so it's hard to judge him, also Sweden wasn't good. I've been harsh on him for his play with the puck which have admittedly been mystifying, something I have heavily disliked since his draft year, but his potential is definitely there, he shows flashes of true high end all around skill but it's super inconsistent. This game, for example, his first 2 periods were good but the 3rd period was a total disaster. He has a lot of work to do but his floor is really high, and so is his ceiling, but again LOTS of work to do but his potential is something any GM would be glad to have in their system to work with. I hope his puck play gets better but his defensive play is already excellent and that's a good base to work with.
You should at least compare to guys of similar size if you don't see him as a possible unicorn.
Probably because Sweden's offense is pure garbage, Couldn't even do a dang thing with a 5-3 advantage over Finland on the PP.
~6cm (2 inches) is still a fairly significant difference when talking about what makes Edvinsson special. I do think Nurse is a good player and it wouldn't be a bad ballpark kind of level for Edvinsson, but at this point he's trending better than that.
