WJHC (World Junior Hockey Championships) 2015

[L K]

Felt like Gauthier played that whole third and locked it down.

He was out there like every other shift. He was very much relied upon as the shutdown guy, and did a very good job of it in the 3rd. Teams need that and the Leafs will likely be very happy with him.

I think it's his size that will hopefully help him be effective at the NHL level.

I think it's a pretty fair comparison.  Both are late first round picks.  Both have great NHL size.  Both excel at faceoffs and have a reputation for advanced defensive zone play.  The big difference is Gautier is a better skater. 

http://www.hockeydb.com/ihdb/stats/pdisplay.php?pid=54471

I thought this was a link to Gauthier's junior stats but it's so much better.

Thanks for the chuckle.

 

[GhostofPotvin29]

Felt like Gauthier played that whole third and locked it down.

He was out there like every other shift. He was very much relied upon as the shutdown guy, and did a very good job of it in the 3rd. Teams need that and the Leafs will likely be very happy with him.

I think it's his size that will hopefully help him be effective at the NHL level.

I think it's a pretty fair comparison.  Both are late first round picks.  Both have great NHL size.  Both excel at faceoffs and have a reputation for advanced defensive zone play.  The big difference is Gautier is a better skater. 

http://www.hockeydb.com/ihdb/stats/pdisplay.php?pid=54471

I thought this was a link to Gauthier's junior stats but it's so much better.

Thanks for the chuckle.

Wouldn't be the worst thing in the world to turn into a similar player like that.  Steckel gets unfairly maligned for his time in Toronto I think.  From what I saw from Gauthier I thought he looked more physical than Steckel was as well.

 

[hockeyfan1]

In the bronze medal game, Slovakia defeated Sweden 4-2 and captured it's first medal in this tournament since 1999.

Team Slovakia made good on it's promise to bring home a medal and played with determination against a disappointing Team Sweden that looked  'sluggish' at times in the game.

Martin Reway, Patriks Koys, David Soltes and Mislav Rosandic scored for Slovakia. 
William Nylander and Jens Looke got the markers for Sweden.

Crowd pleaser & favourite, Slovakian goaltender Denise Godla, was named game MVP as well as top tournament netminder.

The Slovak bench went wild as their bronze medal was confirmed. And why not? It's a proud day for Slovak hockey, and the players wanted to soak it all up.

"This is the best moment in my life," said Petras.

"It?s indescribable feelings," said Soltes. "For Slovakia, it doesn?t happen every day. First we finished in third place [in our group], and now we finished third. So this is like history. We will be happy forever."

http://www.worldjunior2015.com/en/games/2015-01-05/SWE-vs-SVK/

 

[Stickytape]

Felt like Gauthier played that whole third and locked it down.

He was out there like every other shift. He was very much relied upon as the shutdown guy, and did a very good job of it in the 3rd. Teams need that and the Leafs will likely be very happy with him.

I think it's his size that will hopefully help him be effective at the NHL level.

I think it's a pretty fair comparison.  Both are late first round picks.  Both have great NHL size.  Both excel at faceoffs and have a reputation for advanced defensive zone play.  The big difference is Gautier is a better skater. 

http://www.hockeydb.com/ihdb/stats/pdisplay.php?pid=54471

I thought this was a link to Gauthier's junior stats but it's so much better.

Thanks for the chuckle.

Wouldn't be the worst thing in the world to turn into a similar player like that.  Steckel gets unfairly maligned for his time in Toronto I think.  From what I saw from Gauthier I thought he looked more physical than Steckel was as well.

I liked Steckel well enough under Wilson, but centering the face-punchers on a Carlyle 4th line was never going to work for anyone. God, I have nightmares like that. *shudder*

Now that both of those problems have been remedied, I wouldn't mind taking a look at Steckel 2.0.

 

[CarltonTheBear]

Lawson Crouse's tournament bumped him to 3rd overall on ISS's draft ranking:

http://www.isshockey.com/iss-top-30-released-january-2/

What? He played on the 4th line all tournament and didn't even look all that great to me. How does a guy with 4 assists in 24 games this season get this much attention. I know he's big and all that, but still.

 

[Crucialness Key]

Felt like Gauthier played that whole third and locked it down.

He was out there like every other shift. He was very much relied upon as the shutdown guy, and did a very good job of it in the 3rd. Teams need that and the Leafs will likely be very happy with him.

I think it's his size that will hopefully help him be effective at the NHL level.

I think it's a pretty fair comparison.  Both are late first round picks.  Both have great NHL size.  Both excel at faceoffs and have a reputation for advanced defensive zone play.  The big difference is Gautier is a better skater. 

http://www.hockeydb.com/ihdb/stats/pdisplay.php?pid=54471

I thought this was a link to Gauthier's junior stats but it's so much better.

Thanks for the chuckle.

Wouldn't be the worst thing in the world to turn into a similar player like that.  Steckel gets unfairly maligned for his time in Toronto I think.  From what I saw from Gauthier I thought he looked more physical than Steckel was as well.

I liked Steckel well enough under Wilson, but centering the face-punchers on a Carlyle 4th line was never going to work for anyone. God, I have nightmares like that. *shudder*

Now that both of those problems have been remedied, I wouldn't mind taking a look at Steckel 2.0.

Maybe Gauthier will be a new kind of cap-friendly franchise player -- provides key game-winning contributions without ever generating enough points to demand a huge contract. The Anti-Clarkson!