Quote:
Originally Posted by jhonny
The question was what is his upside... 80-90 is certainly not out of the question for him to hit... a career 65 point player? How can anyone say that about a guy who is so young and has already hit that target... he probably still thinks like a kid and is therefore stupid. Let him grow up a bit and give him talent to play with, and mark my words (no matter how lost and one dimensional he has looked), he will peak with a season that looks like this: 44G 41A (80-90 UPSIDE) and maybe he does this once 6 years from now when he's 29 and his brain and Burke catch up with his body...
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I would like to take this moment to say that I am a Leafs fan before I address this.
80-90?!?!?! Who's he playing with Crosby? You want to know a guy who would hit 80 pts year in year out if he had a team around him? Rick Nash...and sorry to say Kessel is no Nash.
Granted he will score between 30-36 goals on average and yes I will also say he will hit 40 once or twice over the course of his career but he is not even a 70 point man on average. He is a 30-30 to 34-34 point guy per year losing 6-9 games per year due to injury.
1) He plays soft and is often invisible. Thankfully they show him during commercial breaks or us Leafs fans wouldn't see him most nights. He doesn't play the corners/behind the net. I get it he isn't a physical presence but come on at least bump and grind a bit....your not going to get the puck put on your tape all the time when your on a team that isn't exactly stacked with talent.
2) Needs to get closer to the net. Shooting close to 60% of your shots from the hash marks on the boards is taking him out of the equation. Your not going to score that far out on a regular basis. 8-10 feet from the net would improve his numbers greatly.
3) Speed. Where is it? He puts together a couple of good games and he seems to run out of gas. He runs into a average to slightly above average D-man squad gets bumped around a little bit and he is frustrated the rest of the night whether they are on him or not.
I
WANT him to be an 80+ pt guy....but I
KNOW he is a 65 pt guy.
