Quoting: CMcAvoy73
Calling Raty a future 1C-2C is beyond ridiculous at this point, what happens when he registers his first North American point…future hall of famer? I’m not even saying anything against the player, but 90% of the time, a guy in his position isn’t an NHL impact player. Most of the time they’re not an NHL player at all.
Its the 13th overall and couple scratch tickets. That doesn’t get pastrnak.
For comparison on Raty, there's an incredibly recent comparison that most high level public evaluations compare him to - Anton Lundell. Both of them played their age-19(draft+1) years in Liiga, the top Finnish league. Lundell put up 25 points in 28 games during the 2020-21 season; Raty put up 41 points in 47 games this year - about 0.02 points per game less. Lundell came into the league this year and put up 44 points in 65 games playing top-6 minutes on a 58-win team.
I'm not saying that Raty will come over and replicate exactly what Lundell did, but I don't think it's crazy to look at those two players - who both play center, are both left handed shots, and are almost identical sized (6'1"/185 for Lundell & 6'0"/180 for Raty) and say that's it's a very easy comparison to make.
With Wahlstrom, I'm not sure how you could spend as much time on these boards as you do and not have seen all the sturm und drang from Islanders fans over his deployment - for whatever reason, Barry Trotz just did not want to give this kid minutes in the second half of the year.
Wahlstrom through the ASB: 36 GP, 10-8-18, 10.3% shooting, 13:21 TOI - basically a 40-45 point guy that you could easily see being more productive with top-6 minutes.
Wahlstrom in the second half: 37 GP, 3-3-6, 5.0% shooting, 10:48 TOI - this is when you start see him playing a lot of ES time with Casey Cizikas, Matt Martin, and Otto Koivula, not necessarily putting him in a position to succeed!
Is Wahlstrom a slam dunk 30 goal scorer? No, but he looks like he has the tools to develop into one if he's actually, you know, used correctly. The feeling around the Isles fanbase is that Trotz is very demanding of his young players and often took away ice time if they made any mistakes - making them play more conservatively and in a style to avoid mistakes and not play to their strengths. I think you see that very clearly with Oliver Wahlstrom's second half this year, and on a slight tangent, I think there's a thick black line connecting that fact to last month's dismissal of Trotz.