Quote:
Originally Posted by Axe08
I love trent whitefield. I donno why, just because he is tight. I actually got to see him when he was called up for a bit. It was against the avs i think
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Me too. Whitfield definitely has NHL-level skill, but he doesn't stick to the big club because he's one of those "tweeners". He's not good enough to hold down an NHL, top-two line job, but he's not really adept at a checking, energy role either. I mean, he can play an awesome defensive game, but his strong suit is scoring and being a "go-to guy". It's just that he's not good enough to do that at the NHL level and using him as a checking forward is doing him and the team a disservice.
And I think that JD et al. see him as being much more valuable as a scoring machine in the AHL rather than having middling success in the NHL. From a couple different interviews over the past couple seasons, he's said that he feels he's got what it takes to play in the NHL and really wants to be up so bad. He's better off staying at Peoria where he enjoys lots of success.