The best players produce at even strength and on special teams. He isn't there yet and needs time. Stats don't lie.
OR, and maybe this is hard for you to understand, we are talking about literally 5 games, barely over a full games worth of actual minutes on the ice and at even strength. His xGF/60 at even strength is fifth on the team (fourth amongst forwards). The stats don’t lie, as you say, but not in the direction you seem to believe.
Probably not the best time to praise Michkovs abilities either, especially the " transcendent player talk"
People haven’t compared him to Gretzky except to say he has that kind of hockey sense. Obviously he’s not close to The Great One’s level. But there haven’t been a lot of guys recently who play like Michkov so it’s hard to compare him
Some people were saying they were going to be A cut above, in other words.......waynes level, because if you can be a cut above players like Mcdavid,matthews, kucerov that is basically what you would be, an all timer elite level top 3-4 player of all time l player. you can see it even in this thread with one guy making a claim michkov was already one of the best players in the world after the 2 goalo game....his 3rd game in the league for gods sake, Another called him " a transcendent talent" I mean, transcendent is a pretty heavy word, a player like Gretzky was transcendent, a player like Orr was transcendent, only a precious few in any sport you name truly are.
It's funny that Tarasenko has had at the same time a bit of a disappointing career and still a very good one.
Sure I see that at times on offense but one would think that "elite " hockey IQ would have some defensive recognition as well right?
Players that need space produce better on the PP than even strength. Its not hard to understand he's a typical 1st year player learning the ropes.
The 7th rounder the Sharks picked, Rimashevsky has been doing quite well in the KHL at 19.
Here are his 5v5 on ice totals and rank among flyers forwards:
Using a 5 game sample is useless in general.
Not long, but that misses the bigger point, which you're ignoring. The end.
The larger point being what? That because he has 0 points at 5v5 through 5 games he "needs more time"?
We’ve had the word “generational” rammed down our throats for 2 years by Russian fanboys and Habs haters. Reality has set in. You love to see it.
Michkov might be the best Russian prospect in a generation, but IMO he was never a true generational prospect for the same reason Bedard wasn't, despite what their counting stats might have shown.
