Yeah, it was tongue-in-cheek and more sarcastic than I should have been. A few emoji's might have helped
. Sorry, if that was read as being 100% serious it shouldn't have been.
But in all seriousness, I hope we can develop a good rivalry. You guys have kicked our ass for the last decade so it's hard to have a rivalry when one side is winning all the time.
Some of the Nurse stuff I'm surprised by, just in terms of your guys view on him by some. Especially considering you guys have for the most part one of the more knowledgeable fan bases and are used to seeing good young D. Nurse was thrown to the wolves playing over 20+ min/game with no support.
I think eventually you guys will like Nurses game. Unlike many of our previous soft young players, Nurse actually has bite to his game. All of that "low hockey IQ" talk is a myth. Nurse is a smart kid (he was the Scholastic Player of the Year in the OHL). He was also by far the most dominant Dman for Team Canada at the 2015 WJC (Theo was on the same team).
Any young D man would have struggled if they had to endure the unsheltered minutes he did last year. Plus, as you know young D men take time to develop, significantly longer than forwards at the same age. Right now, obviously he's behind Vatanen and needs to improve his game significantly. But he's worth the wait for us, don't you think?