Re: Dvorak for Laine
I'll try to add my thoughts here for what it's worth.
Laine has current higher value. That value is for obvious reasons; Being a potential top 3 pick, his WC play, his Liiga playoffs play, this being his draft year, his shot etc. His perceived value is going to be at an all time high right now.
Dvorak's should also be high, but not at Laine's level. He's not a past first round pick, he's playing with a high profile player (who was former top 5 pick) who is a top 5 player in the CHL, he's recently turned twenty which will lead to the incorrect assumption that he's an overage player. But he's also put up huge point totals two years running, and been an integral part of the Memorial Cup winning team this year. He has talent for sure, and he certainly has value. (as an aside, he has his hypey fans, Craig Button among them...)
Dvoark had a lot of pre-draft hype going into his draft year. From what I remember he was billed as a potential top 10/15 pick, but because of a knee injury he had in January of his draft year, he struggled to play in a ton of games and struggled to really get anything consistent going. He showed lots of flashes of talented but never really hit on anything until his draft plus one year. Most of his first season he played on the wing, and it wasn't until his second season with the Knights that he transitioned to center (where he's very clearly flourished).
He's a pretty reliable two-way player, showing good head knowledge of how to play defense as a center, and he's a hard worker. He also has a very good shot, and heads up playmaking. His skating is also above average, probably leaning towards being on the higher end side of things. Yes he's been playing with Marner and that helps him put up points, but that speaks to his ability to think the game well. He plays so well with Marner because he knows where to be to put himself in a position to score, or because he knows where Marner/Tkachuk are going to go. That's a good thing and he's shown off some serious offensive talent. Sure he's in his draft plus two year, but it's not exactly the easiest thing in the world to put up 100 points (let along do it two seasons in a row) or lead the league in goals. He's also not small, being listed either as 6'0 or 6'1 but being listed as 200-205. All that said, I think his future is a little limited, simply because of what players will be ahead of him. He's going to be competing against Strome, and that's a tough battle to win. I think because of that fact he'll be limited to a 2nd line role (which is totally fine honestly) and that will limit his total top end output. Strome has the draft pedigree, the production as well, and the size that you want as a number 1C. Dvorak will have an uphill battle to beat him for prime time. It's more likely that his top end production is around 55-60 points than 65-70.
Now onto Laine. Laine's got a killer shot, one of the best that I've seen in a prospect in a long time. It's evoked images of Ovechkin (though I don't agree) and Stamkos since he loves to sit in the Stammer spot and shoot. He's also big and has shown an ability to move through players to get to a position he needs to score in. He obviously had some very impressive goal totals through the Liiga playoffs and through the WC to set historical records for an 18 year old at the tournament. What's more impressive is his ability to put shots on the net. He shoots and he shoots a lot. While I don't agree his shot is as good as Ovechkin's (it's still incredibly good), his ability to create shots is approaching Ovechkin level. It's not just elite, it's practically the best ever for a recent Finnish prospect, beating out totals by Barkov, Granlund, Armia etc (as an aside, Puljujarvi also beat those totals to be the 2nd best Finnish prospect is recent history). Now Laine's gotten an extraordinary amount of hype, for good reason, but it has gotten a little out of hand. He's not a perfect prospect. His skating is a weakness, and while it's come a long way, he'll need to improve it long term. It won't limit him, but it will need to be worked on. Barkov is a good example to follow for how that progression can work, as he's come a long way since his first season. I'd expect a similar learning curve skating wise for Laine. However he'll never be the power forward that Ovechkin is, his skating is nowhere near as explosive and strong. He can be an effective power forward, but he won't be generational and it might prevent him from being a franchise power forward IMO. I also question Laine's ability to shoot on a tighter skating surface. He would have had a lot more time to find space and take shots in Finland than he'll get in NA, and he'll need a good chunk of his season to adjust. Again it won't limit him but it'll take some time while he figures out how to play in that sort of new situation. Laine's almost a guarantee to start in the NHL next season and since he's playing on the wing, he won't need to worry about playing as strong a two-way game as if he was a center. This is a positive for his initial play and longer term play. He can be put in a much stronger position to succeed as a trigger man than Dvorak ever could since Dvorak plays center. He's got a much easier path to top line time and top PP time than Dvorak does. On Winnipeg Laine is basically their top sniper option and will be given prime opportunities with that. That's a huge thing for his fantasy potential next season and moving forward. He's almost assured top line time going forward.
In sum I think Laine is the clear choice here. As much as Dvorak is a talented player, he doesn't have nearly as easy a time getting prime time that Laine will. I don't think people are out of line for taking the Laine side pretty easily.
14T BiWeekly H2H. 4 C/RW/LW, 6 D, 2 G
Cats:G(3), A(1.5), PIM(0.2), PPP(1), SOG(0.2), GWG(1), SHP(2), Hits(0.3), BkS(0.4). W(2), SO(2), OTL(0.5), SV(0.2), GA(-1), L(-1). 9 Keepers in Bold. 12 player Farm team (skaters under 110, goalies under 80 gp) in italics
LW - Gaudreau, Forsberg, Parise, Hyman (C)
C - Backstrom, Getzlaf, N Foligno (LW/RW), Kotkaniemi, Carter (LW/RW)
RW - Tarasenko, Rantanen, Arvidsson, Atkinson, Gourde (C/LW), Mikheyev (RW)
D - Dahlin, Theodore, Ellis, Klingberg, Fox, Andersson
G - Murray, Grubauer
Prospects -Rossi, Turcotte, Kravstov, Tippett, Bouchard, Lehtonen, K Miller, Addison, DeSmith, Kahkonen, Ingram, Gustavsson
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Originally Posted by Axeman33
