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Travis Yost on Mittlestadt


inkman

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25 minutes ago, StuckinFL said:

I personally think the article was too kind. He's not ready for the NHL. 

Couldn't get to the article.  But disagree about not being NHL ready.  He'd be fine getting 4th line & 2nd PP usage with the occassional look at a larger role.  He absolutely wasn't ready to be a 2C at this point.

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33 minutes ago, Taro T said:

Couldn't get to the article.  But disagree about not being NHL ready.  He'd be fine getting 4th line & 2nd PP usage with the occassional look at a larger role.  He absolutely wasn't ready to be a 2C at this point.

Could a half or full season in the A have hurt him?

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1 hour ago, Taro T said:

Couldn't get to the article.  But disagree about not being NHL ready.  He'd be fine getting 4th line & 2nd PP usage with the occassional look at a larger role.  He absolutely wasn't ready to be a 2C at this point.

Most 4th liners are a combination of good checkers, high energy, willing to play body, defensively responsible, help on the PK ...

Mitts is not that but he could handle 3C provided you are set at 2C.   On a more talented team he may  not be NHL ready.  

I watched him closely the past few games, especially when I saw him live in St Louis.  Other players will try mess with him physically and he does push back on them but that takes him off his games.   When he gets a man body and dedicates an off season to getting stronger he will benefit greatly.  

Edited by Pimlach
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1 hour ago, Taro T said:

Couldn't get to the article.  But disagree about not being NHL ready.  He'd be fine getting 4th line & 2nd PP usage with the occassional look at a larger role.  He absolutely wasn't ready to be a 2C at this point.

I think most of his problems are 1. physical strength and 2. makes rushed/bad decisions when pressured.  Given that, I think you def can make a case that he isn't NHL ready.  The AHL is tailor made to develop him through those issues.

Having said that, playing against 4th liners would do wonders for his performance.  Although, 4th liners aren't the scrubs they used to be when teams kept roster spots for tough guys.

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12 minutes ago, Weave said:

I think most of his problems are 1. physical strength and 2. makes rushed/bad decisions when pressured.  Given that, I think you def can make a case that he isn't NHL ready.  The AHL is tailor made to develop him through those issues.

 I agree with all of this and the text in bold happened a few times last night. He was in the d zone and had plenty of space to get the puck to a teammate when the forward started checking but he instead dumped it up the boards giving it away. 

The A would have been the best spot for him this year. He would be tearing that league up.

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1 hour ago, Pimlach said:

Most 4th liners are a combination of good checkers, high energy, willing to play body, defensively responsible, help on the PK ...

Mitts is not that but he could handle 3C provided you are set at 2C.   On a more talented team he may  not be NHL ready.  

I watched him closely the past few games, especially when I saw him live in St Louis.  Other players will try mess with him physically and he does push back on them but that takes him off his games.   When he gets a man body and dedicates an off season to getting stronger he will benefit greatly.  

Considering THIS team's 4th line gets 3rd/2nd line minutes as, when healthy, it is the shutdown line, call what he SHOULD be getting whatever you want.  IF they had a C that could work reasonably successfully with Sheary & Okposo, he'd be centering Thompson & Pominville & playing against other teams' 4th lines all the time at home & often on the road as well.  

And THAT line would be getting 4th line minutes even though the MySabres app would still show them as the 3rd line.  And except for following an icing they would almost exclusively be playing 3rd & 4th liners and just as importantly 3rd D pairings.

Realize that there are multiple definitions of "4th line" & could've been clearer that I was specifically referring to the playing time definition.

1 hour ago, inkman said:

Could a half or full season in the A have hurt him?

Probably not.  But he also wasn't looking bad at the beginning of the season until Housley stopped trying to make Berglund or Sobotka or whomever a real 2C &/ or have a defensive guy on each line except Eichel's (even though Sobotka still slid onto that line for late defensive faceoffs early) & promoted Mittelstadt essentially into full time 2C duty.  He seems to be getting burnt out by his usage.

So, there was no real reason to do it out of training camp, and now there really is no one else to try.  They're going to be sliding Larsson up, which will lower his effectiveness & unless a trade is made, they really don't have a way to send him down.  But, if a trade is made, they can play him the way he should be used & they don't NEED to send him down.  Catch 22.

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1 hour ago, Weave said:

I think most of his problems are 1. physical strength and 2. makes rushed/bad decisions when pressured.  Given that, I think you def can make a case that he isn't NHL ready.  The AHL is tailor made to develop him through those issues.

Having said that, playing against 4th liners would do wonders for his performance.  Although, 4th liners aren't the scrubs they used to be when teams kept roster spots for tough guys.

 

56 minutes ago, Ogre said:

 I agree with all of this and the text in bold happened a few times last night. He was in the d zone and had plenty of space to get the puck to a teammate when the forward started checking but he instead dumped it up the boards giving it away. 

The A would have been the best spot for him this year. He would be tearing that league up.

Playing 3rd scoring line C would've been the best spot for him IMHO.  Unfortunately, that was not a real option after July 1.

And again IMHO, he'd develop the most being challenged & often (not always, but often) winning the battles against lower tiered NHLers rather than working that puck ALWAYS through the middle (like in college) against AHLers.

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Heading slowly into bust territory (or long term project) along with Nylander. At best he needs a year or so in the minors.  What’s shocking is how much better his contemporaries are then him.  The metrics don’t lie.  Those two picks as well as the one we gave away for Lehrner could be what is going to delay this teams rise for a few more years.  Petterson by comparison is elite already.  Sink or swim these days.  JBot has a lot of work still.  At this point we are no where close to being a contender it may be best to get a lower pick again. 

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He stayed up because we have no one. Kid has talent and potential but at this point is more of a liability than asset. It's fair to argue that he will learn faster with the big club and the responsibility but you also have to wonder if he might not lose confidence and go backwards. Wouldn't be the first case of a player being rushed and never developing properly. We shall see. 

No way should he be a 2nd line center  though. 

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There is some concern about where Casey is in his development, but on the whole starting to panic or starting to consider him a bust is premature. 

His usage is that of a 3rd Line Center and looking at his comparable list from the article only three where from his draft class. 

Petterson is tracking to be the best player from the 2017 Draft,  Patrick and Hirscher have more talent on their wings. 

Overall the season has been disappointing to this point for Casey but I would like to see him with some better talent.  

Moving Reinhart to his RW and either Thompson or Smith to his LW for a couple of games might work. 

Pominville could move back to the top line for a few games.

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  • 10 months later...

OK, so here we are, 11 months later, and Mitts still looks terrible.  If we exclude 2 assists in the opener and goals plus an assist in back-to-back games on the West coast roadie, he has contributed zero goals and 1 assist in 19 games this season, including zero goals and 1 assist in the Sabres' swoon over the last 12 games.  (Although, to be fair, he set up Parise beautifully for Minny's 1st goal last night.)

I'm starting to think of Mitts as the new Grigorenko -- a much-hyped and allegedly highly-skilled center prospect who likely was promoted to the NHL before he was ready and is unable to do a GD thing at the NHL level.  Mitts is faster than Griggy was, but at this point I see no functional difference between the 2.

It's far too early to give up on Mitts, but I wouldn't be at all surprised if he turns out to be a complete washout.  In the meantime, I'd like to hear a good reason for him not to spend the rest of the season in Rochester, at least once the Sabres have 12 healthy forwards.

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3 minutes ago, nfreeman said:

It's far too early to give up on Mitts, but I wouldn't be at all surprised if he turns out to be a complete washout.  In the meantime, I'd like to hear a good reason for him not to spend the rest of the season in Rochester, at least once the Sabres have 12 healthy forwards.

I've said it a few time on here and I'm still convinced that they made the gentleman's agreement when signing him that he would never go to the AHL.  That's the only reason that makes any sense to me as to why he has stayed up 100% of the time.  This type of agreement can't be made on paper, but the players and agents will remember it if you make that promise and then don't follow through.

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Just now, shrader said:

I've said it a few time on here and I'm still convinced that they made the gentleman's agreement when signing him that he would never go to the AHL.  That's the only reason that makes any sense to me as to why he has stayed up 100% of the time.  This type of agreement can't be made on paper, but the players and agents will remember it if you make that promise and then don't follow through.

This has also occurred to me and I agree that it's the most logical and likely explanation.

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He is basically a shootout specialist masquerading as a 2/3C.  He doesn't drive his line.  He doesn't generate offense for others.  He doesn't cause havoc in front of the net and he's not a two-way player except one time in one overtime that was significantly over-hyped by the media.  He isn't hard to play against.  He still seems to have the body of a teenage pizza deliverer.  He has not come anywhere close to living up to the hype and, even though he's very young, one would think by now we'd have seen *SOME* glimpse of some future, latent talent yet to come out.  But we haven't.

He is Mythlestadt.

Edited by Cascade Youth
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My gut is telling me that Mitts isn’t going to live up to his draft potential.

Im nowhere near suggesting we give up on him, but the longer this goes on with minima evidence of development, the less optimistic I am.

I would 100% support trading him for a good 3C now.

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4 minutes ago, Weave said:

My gut is telling me that Mitts isn’t going to live up to his draft potential.

Im nowhere near suggesting we give up on him, but the longer this goes on with minima evidence of development, the less optimistic I am.

I would 100% support trading him for a good 3C now.

No way that would work out without sweeteners added by the Sabres.  If he were a decent 3C himself we wouldn't even consider moving him.

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I am not convinced he will be fine.  I would prefer seeing him included in a package deal to get a real 2C.  I don't think he will make much of an impact for the rest of this season, so nothing lost. JB will not send him to Rochester, but even if he did that means we get no contribution this year.  Hopefully next year Cozens can be in the lineup as our 3C.

 

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