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What happened to Alexander Wennberg's career?

Bjornar Moxnes

Bjornar Moxnes

Stem Rødt og Felix Unger Sörum
Oct 16, 2016
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Wennberg was drafted 14th overall in 2013 and although had a lacklustre start in his rookie season, continued to improve with a strong sophomore year, and exploded initially in 2016-2017. Heck, at the quarter mark of the season, he had more points than Leon Draisaitl, playing entirely as a C. Although, he finished with only 59 points in his career year, that was still good numbers for what seemed to be an emerging 2C with 1C potential. Flash forward and he's not ever come close to matching those numbers and even got bought out by the Blue Jackets.
 
Blindside hit from Tom Wilson.



Had a horrible year after that where he was barely playable.

He was never quite the same player. Still became a pretty good defensive 3C. That's the short version - there's more we could go into like his previous concussions -

He also had this concussion at the end of his career year (the year prior to the Wilson hit):



And one the year before that which I believe was courtesy of Chris Kreider.
 
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BookTok happened.

Wennberg.png
 
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His 59 point season was probably more of a mirage than a foundation of things to come in the future.

Same thing has plagued him for his entire career, he doesn't have a way to consistently create space for himself. Lack of drive and compete just leaves you with someone that is talented, but never lives up to their potential, because they are not talented enough to overcome their passiveness when playing against the best players in the world.
 
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dmac7719 said:
His 59 point season was probably more of a mirage than a foundation of things to come in the future.

Same thing has plagued him for his entire career, he doesn't have a way to consistently create space for himself. Lack of drive and compete just leaves you with someone that is talented, but never lives up to their potential, because they are not talented enough to overcome their passiveness when playing against the best players in the world.
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He's always been passive with his shot but his overall game changed after the details laid out in the 1st response of the thread. It was a very obvious shift in his game
 
For what it’s worth, we absolutely love him on the Sharks. He’s a fantastic 3C and has moved up to 2C flawlessly with rookies on his wings more often than not. Great guy, great leader, and super skilled on both ends of the ice.

A lot of the season he spent playing with guys like Kunin, Goodrow, etc. — he’s put up points whenever he had Toffoli or now, Will Smith, on his line.

I honestly wouldn’t be surprised to see Wennberg have a Granlund-like resurgence over the next couple of years and put up some nice points when the Sharks become a real team again.
 
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Wennberg plays the most "midfielder" game that I know of out of anyone in the NHL.

Folks can miss how effective he is if they're only evaluating him by points or what he does deep in the offensive zone. There were a lot of haters in Columbus and a few in Seattle. People didn't see him cutting off attackers in the neutral zone and turning play the other way. I've always said he would be an excellent defenseman. He reads play better without the puck than he does deep on the attack.
 
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majormajor said:
Wennberg plays the most "midfielder" game that I know of out of anyone in the NHL.

Folks can miss how effective he is if they're only evaluating him by points or what he does deep in the offensive zone. There were a lot of haters in Columbus and a few in Seattle. People didn't see him cutting off attackers in the neutral zone and turning play the other way. I've always said he would be an excellent defenseman. He reads play better without the puck than he does deep on the attack.
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He’s very confident with the puck too, very methodical and manages to make space for himself. His skill has also surprised me, he’s had some beautiful goals/passes for us this year.
 
Jargon said:
He’s very confident with the puck too, very methodical and manages to make space for himself. His skill has also surprised me, he’s had some beautiful goals/passes for us this year.
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Sublime skill.

He's not like a middling skill guy that randomly had 59 pts one year. There were good reasons for thinking (before the big concussion) that he was going to be a star player.
 
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