Some nice perspective on how far Jack and Nico have come from their drafts to being the leaders of this team. A couple highlights but the whole article is worth the read:
“Now, Hughes is one of the best players in the best league in the world. He took a huge leap forward in his third season, with 26 goals and 56 points in just 49 games, then launched himself into hockey’s stratosphere this season, with 43 goals and 99 points in 78 games, finally staying healthy for a full season. On Monday night, he scored his third goal of the series, getting shot out of a cannon and putting all the moves and then some on Igor Shesterkin to slip the puck past the goalie’s outstretched right leg early in the first period. It was superstar stuff.
It took four long years to get to this point, to go from bust to best.
He’s just 21.”
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“Now, Hischier is a star, a legitimate Selke Trophy candidate, and a point-a-game player, with 80 in 81 games. He scored 31 goals this season, all while routinely handling a heavy workload of defensive-zone starts and difficult matchups. He leads Devils forwards in shorthanded ice time. He’s second to Hughes in power-play time. He does it all, and he does it all well. He’s as well-rounded a player as you could hope to find. On Monday night, he dashed into the offensive zone, stopped on a dime and fired a perfect pass through five players to Jonas Siegenthaler for the game-winning goal in the third period.
It took six long years to get to this point, to go from meh to Oh, man.
He’s just 24.”
by xxfatpigxx
6 Comments
What seems to be the running theme of that article, which was incredibly well written, is that the Devils drafted top six guys, gave them top six roles, and allowed them to grow at their own pace.
The Rangers, on the other hand, have no patience for development. They need to be the best, now, if not they’ll find someone who is the best now.
Laf is not as good as Jack, but there is no denying the Rangers have not given him the proper lane to succeed. They’re using their #1OA and their #2OA as a checking line ffs. It’s criminal development for those guys. Laf should look for the exits as soon as he can.
Nice article…Lafrenbust is still a bust though!
Sorry but the idea that Jack Hughes ever looked like a bust is super stupid.
I get that Mark Lazerus is not on the Devils beat and may not have gotten a ton of chances to watch Hughes before this season, but he has been a super safe bet to become an impact player since at least his second season. The signs were even there as a rookie, if you looked under the hood on his numbers.
Oh don’t worry, league might try to bend the rules and put the NYR in the draft again, like they did with that stupid play-in when they made the playoffs & still won the 1O. Then they’ll rig & manipulate the ping pong balls like they did with the Knicks in 1985 when they put the envelope in the freezer and David Stern just reached in and grabbed the cold envelope so Indiana wouldn’t grab Patrick Ewing & the NYK would with the 1O. League really wants Bedard in large U.S. market. Not a Columbus. You know the deal
> He was too small,
Yes
>too slight, which made him injury prone.
Bit early to call him injury prone, but sure, definitely slight.
> And he just didn’t have *it.*
Oh, so the writer just wasn’t watching.
It’s just the nature of this type of piece, trying to draw a starker contrast by going to extremes, but I don’t know if anyone who actually watched him regularly thought he didn’t have *it.* He was extremely unpolished and there was definitely a fear that he was too small to make proper use of his talents, but those talents shone through from time to time. I think we knew what we had (though to be fair, I think most of us weren’t expecting this type of goal-scoring prowess).
I don’t disagree at all that Laf/Kakko haven’t had the usage and opportunities to really flourish. That being said, Laf hasn’t been particularly amazing at basically anything in his career so far. Kakko I like a lot more and watching a couple of rangers games throughout the year, it’s clear that he’s the better of the two and arguably should be in the top 6 over kane/tarasenko. I think it’s a good idea/notion to blame the organization for their shortcomings but in all honesty if they were good enough I think they would have been playing by now, is at least my opinion.