The original next Ron Francis was, of course, Kris Beech.
“The thing that stands out first about him, being a guy coming out of junior, is he’s got a maturity about him. He understands how to play away from the puck and he’s got an advanced understanding of the game. The head that he has on his shoulders and his ability to protect the game on both sides is impressive,” Forrest said. “It’s knowing a danger situation, it’s knowing when to be on the right side of the puck, it’s knowing when you can go and have a little bit of risk and then the other areas of the ice where you’ve got to be more responsible, it’s making reads off of players, and how you recover from a mistake so that it looks like you didn’t make one. Those types of things that some of the other younger guys take a while to get a grasp on, he seems to have a head start there for sure.”
Ripplinger thinks Yager’s going to develop into a productive player who is also a two-way one. O’Leary talks about him becoming a Ryan Kesler type who can check and score.
“He might not have the snot that a guy like (Kesler) has but coaches like him because at the end of the game, if the goalie’s out, he’s responsible, he’s got a good stick, he’s smart and he anticipates,” O’Leary said. “And most importantly, he loves the challenge of that head-to-head matchup with other top centremen.”
Edit an hour later: The snot?!? That was copied from the article directly.
The original next Ron Francis was, of course, Kris Beech.
“The thing that stands out first about him, being a guy coming out of junior, is he’s got a maturity about him. He understands how to play away from the puck and he’s got an advanced understanding of the game. The head that he has on his shoulders and his ability to protect the game on both sides is impressive,” Forrest said. “It’s knowing a danger situation, it’s knowing when to be on the right side of the puck, it’s knowing when you can go and have a little bit of risk and then the other areas of the ice where you’ve got to be more responsible, it’s making reads off of players, and how you recover from a mistake so that it looks like you didn’t make one. Those types of things that some of the other younger guys take a while to get a grasp on, he seems to have a head start there for sure.”
Ripplinger thinks Yager’s going to develop into a productive player who is also a two-way one. O’Leary talks about him becoming a Ryan Kesler type who can check and score.
“He might not have the snot that a guy like (Kesler) has but coaches like him because at the end of the game, if the goalie’s out, he’s responsible, he’s got a good stick, he’s smart and he anticipates,” O’Leary said. “And most importantly, he loves the challenge of that head-to-head matchup with other top centremen.”
Edit an hour later: The snot?!? That was copied from the article directly.
I took it literally, as in "beat the snot out of him!" Kesler was a gritty playoff type performer. I recall when Gillis was the Vancouver GM, either Shero or Rutherford—I can't recall which, made a big push to acquire Kesler.
In all seriousness, given this fanbase's thirst for good young players, I hope that the expectations for Yager are realistic. He's not Connor Bedard. He's going to take a few years to develop. While we hope that we're looking at our 1c of the future, it's more likely that he's a good 2c...still an important piece.
Out of curiousity, anyone know why he hasn't been offered or hasn't signed an ELC yet?
My guess is that it is tied to a few things:
1) They probably saw very little chance that he would make the team this year with the signings they have.
2) Depends on their projections of when they think he can join the team; if they think he's 3 years away, then it is better to wait because ELCs can only "slide" 2 years. Sliding means that it doesn't burn a contract year because they aren't playing pro hockey.
3) The team is at 46 contracts today, out of a maximum of 50 contracts allowed. You had White and Pysyk potentially in line to earn contracts from their PTOs, which would put them at 48. You typically don't want to be operating at your max contracts...makes it hard to make trades and other roster moves. Right now, there are only 11 teams that have 46 or more contracts.
Out of curiousity, anyone know why he hasn't been offered or hasn't signed an ELC yet?
My guess is that it is tied to a few things:
1) They probably saw very little chance that he would make the team this year with the signings they have.
2) Depends on their projections of when they think he can join the team; if they think he's 3 years away, then it is better to wait because ELCs can only "slide" 2 years. Sliding means that it doesn't burn a contract year because they aren't playing pro hockey.
3) The team is at 46 contracts today, out of a maximum of 50 contracts allowed. You had White and Pysyk potentially in line to earn contracts from their PTOs, which would put them at 48. You typically don't want to be operating at your max contracts...makes it hard to make trades and other roster moves. Right now, there are only 11 teams that have 46 or more contracts.
All of that makes sense. Good points, thanks for that.
