I was watching a video about Bowen Byram and I’m guessing he’s going to be paired with Vlasic a lot. The worst statistic that Byram has is puck retrieval in his own zone, but guess who has one of the best in the league, yes that would be Vlasic.
One of the things that confuses me, i think i read in Ellis scouting report, Nick Lardis poor skating????, i think many of them are getting older and confused. Lardis is an exceptional skater and he’s strong for his size i remember him fore checking and he hammered someone and it was fricking impressive,
Nice thing about drafting kids with a good work ethic, the only thing that will keep them from being NHL players is their talent level. Boisvert putting on 15lbs of muscle. I remember Frondell being criticized for his endurance and he ended scoring the best on the endurance test at the combine.
So if you draft kids with a good work ethic that means to me as these kids gain more experience and feel like they belong like Greene and Moore the team defense will only get better and better because it will be like watching a team of Brandon Hagels.
I could be wrong but I don’t know if we will see Byram and Vlasic together much at all. I just don’t think they made Byram the highest paid D to play him on his off side. I see Byram playing LD paired with one of the RD or someone else they want to give offensive zone starts to primarily. The Hawks know Byram isn’t the strongest in his own end, so just can’t see them putting him out there with their shutdown guy when they want said shutdown guy taking the defensive load. To me, Ian Cole is more likely to be playing with Vlasic, essentially the Crevier replacement to take the Dzone starts.
I’m also going to throw it out there that I would not be shocked (barring any trades) if the Hawks leverage the waiver exempt status of Levshunov and start him in Rockford, until someone is traded or injured. Cole, Kaiser, Del Mastro can all play RD. Of course things can change if any of the young D take a big steps and show up in camp with huge improvement. All these guys aged 20-23 could at any time take another leap. Of course things could change with Del Mastro rumored to maybe be on the trade block.