Practice and Roster Updates 1/13

[Doohickie]

2 hours ago, JohnC said:

A good discussion topic can be made on which players are the most pleasant and which players are the most disappointing surprise? I'm not sure who I would put in the negative category, although I know a number of people would want to include Mitts or Olofsson in that category. I'm not one of them. 

I think the "disappointments" are still in work to an extent.  DG has stubbornly (and against the best advice this forum has to offer) kept VO and Mitts together.  With Jost they're finally starting to gel as a line.  Krebs was a disappointment but with Gus and Okie he's been doing much better.  It's easy to get frustrated when a player doesn't immediately hit their potential but I think juniors to AHL to NHL is an incredibly steep learning curve and while some players adapt quickly, others require more work.

Olofsson is an interesting case.  He made it to the NHL based on his wicked one-timer, making him a power play specialist.  This season his performance has been disappointing, at least to some, but he's still on a terrific pace for goals, *and* I think Granato's been continuing to develop Ollie's game to make it more complete.  So he fails on the backcheck sometimes, but he's backchecking and getting better at it.  In the offensive zone he's not just a trigger man; he's starting to pass more (not just because his one-timer isn't there, but because he can set up someone else for a better shot).  With the goals he's scored he's already hit his ceiling in terms of expectations of a 7th rounder, but his game is still growing and rounding out.