RNH is pretty underrated it seems, which is fair, I'm sure most people saying they'd consider players like Huberdeau over him haven't actually seen him play on a regular basis at the NHL level and how he subtly makes everyone on his team better and everyone on the other team worse. The guy is incredible.
??? I can truly understand some of the names being thrown around in this thread, but Kreider I just can not understand. So can you please explain your reasoning in this?
Did you watch the playoffs? Kreider showed you everything you could possible want out of future star. He showed it to you leading the US to gold in Juniors. He showed it winning 2 national championships at BC. He's also a freak athlete
I also don't just look at PPG to decide who the best players are
Call me crazy, but I'd prefer Yakupov. More able to handle today's NHL, imo. He also has more leadership intangibles and such.
nope
Quote:
Originally Posted by PhillyBluesFan
Did you watch the playoffs? Kreider showed you everything you could possible want out of future star. He showed it to you leading the US to gold in Juniors. He showed it winning 2 national championships at BC.
and through all that he was still less impressive than RNH last year and to try and pretend otherwise is delusional bordering on mentally insane.
Why? Because I believe in the philosophy of building from the 'Net out. What good is it if you can score 5 goals, when your goaltender lets in 6? And while you can always find a mediocre goaltender, an elite goaltender can steal games.
and through all that he was still less impressive than RNH last year and to try and pretend otherwise is delusional bordering on mentally insane.
1.Hopkins played in the NHL regular season, while Kreider played in college and in the NHL playoffs and both played good. The impressiveness of their years aren't comparable.
2.Who cares who had the better year, they are 21 and 19 not exactly the career defining age for a Hockey player.
Personally I think the best comparison for Hopkins is Nicklas Backstrom, I see Kreider being like a bigger and faster version of Shane Doan. I'll take the latter
This is unreal. RNH was lighting up the NHL as a rookie & a 18 Year old and people would rather have Kuznetsov,Yak,Tarasenko,etc. over him.
I'm not even a Oilers fan but wow... RNH seems pretty underrated around here.
This is unreal. RNH was lighting up the NHL as a rookie & a 18 Year old and people would rather have Kuznetsov,Yak,Tarasenko,etc. over him.
I'm not even a Oilers fan but wow... RNH seems pretty underrated around here.
"Lighting up" is a bit generous, no? The guy got fed crazy amounts of PP time and faced soft minutes 5 on 5. Still a great player though
"Lighting up" is a bit generous, no? The guy got fed crazy amounts of PP time and faced soft minutes 5 on 5. Still a great player though
Still, RNH was almost a PPG player before his January injury: 13goals-35pts/37gms. Who knows what he could of done if the injury never struck, but in the range of 20goals/65-75pts would sound fair. Obviously durability might be a concern, but just watching this kid you can see he has all the vision and potential in the world to be the next Joe Thornton offensively.
"Lighting up" is a bit generous, no? The guy got fed crazy amounts of PP time and faced soft minutes 5 on 5. Still a great player though
He turned a terrible PP into one of the best in the league
You'd have to be the worst coach in hockey to NOT feed him PP time. At one point he was being double-shifted on the PP because he's so damn productive there
He turned a terrible PP into one of the best in the league
You'd have to be the worst coach in hockey to NOT feed him PP time. At one point he was being double-shifted on the PP because he's so damn productive there
I get it. Unfortunately, 85% of the game is played at even strength
Did you watch the playoffs? Kreider showed you everything you could possible want out of future star. He showed it to you leading the US to gold in Juniors. He showed it winning 2 national championships at BC. He's also a freak athlete
I also don't just look at PPG to decide who the best players are
No. But as soon as there's a new season, things could change really fast considering the amount of big names possibly making it to the NHL ( Tarasenko, Hamilton, Yakupov, Murray, Granlund, Huberdeau, Galchenyuk, Jones, Mackinnon, Drouin, Barkov, Monahan, E. Lindholm & Shinkaruk)
Why? Because I believe in the philosophy of building from the 'Net out. What good is it if you can score 5 goals, when your goaltender lets in 6? And while you can always find a mediocre goaltender, an elite goaltender can steal games.
I can understand wanting to build your team around a young up-and-comer like Schneider or Rask but Lehner and Markstrom are way too unproven to take over a potential first line center in RNH. Forwards and defensemen like RNH, Hamilton, Yakupov, etc. are far, FAR safer bets.
Why? Because I believe in the philosophy of building from the 'Net out. What good is it if you can score 5 goals, when your goaltender lets in 6? And while you can always find a mediocre goaltender, an elite goaltender can steal games.
Your posts make my brain hurt. So you would rather have goalies who have the potential to have a SV% about 5% higher than a goalie like Dubnyk, over RNH? Just doing the math in my head, that equates to about 12-13 less goals per year than Dubnyk, while RNH can potentially hit the 100 point mark a few times in his career. That makes zero sense.
