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Laine v Matthews

BKerr said:
Well we all know that Trent Dilfer was a better quarterback than Dan Marino cause he has a Super Bowl ring. Team Accomplishments matter when judging individual players.
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It's the same logic that might suggest Kevin Westgarth is a premiere talent because he won a cup shortly after cracking the NHL. Faster than even The Great One.
 
I think I'm getting a little obsessed with possibility of getting a number one centre. Just watched a whole lottery show again. :/
 
Mark Schiefele on Laine/Matthews:

"He plays the game totally different than Laine. Laine's a little bit more of a sniper, reads the ice really well and [finds] spots where he can get off a shot quickly or goes to the net easily. He has an unbelievable set of hands on him as well," Scheifele said.

"Then you see a player like Matthews, and he plays such a solid game. He reminds me a little bit of [Ryan] Getzlaf. He's tall, he's upright, he moves the puck well, he's very flow-y in his game. Also, when he gets in deep, he's able to grind with the best of them. He's a big body. He's definitely going to be a very good centre in the NHL."
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http://www.sportsnet.ca/hockey/nhl/...-world-championship-winnipeg-jets-no-2-draft/
 
LeafOfFaith said:
Snipe.
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Thing is...Matthews has the big shot too. If his game was to find gaps in the defence and make him self available for the pass instead of being so puck dominant, I think we'd be talking about him in similar tones to what Laine is spoken about in that regard.
 
Matthews has that heavy wrister that he unleashes when he gets close enough to the net.

Laine is more of that Brett Hull type who finds a spot and then one-times the shot home or snipes it into a corner of the net.

Both snipers, but I think Laine's type of sniping can get him 50 goals, while Matthews is more in the 35 range.
 
LeafOfFaith said:
Matthews has that heavy wrister that he unleashes when he gets close enough to the net.

Laine is more of that Brett Hull type who finds a spot and then one-times the shot home or snipes it into a corner of the net.

Both snipers, but I think Laine's type of sniping can get him 50 goals, while Matthews is more in the 35 range.
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Well, I think you're a bit too high on Laine's goal scoring potential...Ovechkin is pretty much the best goal scorer ever (check the adjusted totals to era scoring), and he struggles to hit 50 these days. Laine popping 40-45 regularly would be epic in this scoring environment. 50 is unlikely unless league wide scoring goes up a fair bit.

I think you missed my point though. I don't think the tools difference is very large between the two of them in that regard. Matthews also has a bomb of a slap shot, we just see the wrister more often because it's the right shot to use when you're carrying the puck. Matthews is extremely puck dominant when he's on the ice. Though he's also strong on the puck, Laine is most dangerous when he doesn't have the puck and the defence forgets about him, he finds a gap and hammers one timers (which you allude to in your post). If Matthews wanted to play that game, he has the tools to do it, he's just so good with the puck that it tends to follow him around the ice so we don't see that as often from him. I don't think the tools are much different though, Matthews has a bomb.
 
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