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Florida_Man_Maroon

Member Since
Jul 28, 2019
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Tampa Bay Lightning
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Forum: Armchair-GMMon at 2:35 pm
Thread: End of season prospect pool assessment
<div class="quote"><div class="quote_t">Quoting: <b>CoopsTroops</b></div><div>Firstly, Goncalves is over a year and a half older. Finley was one of the youngest in last year's draft class, and Goncalves was drafted as an overager after not being drafted his first draft year. So, Goncalves has more hockey under him at this point due to something Finley had no control over.

Both started the year with Syracuse before having to go back to their WHL teams. Finley played 2 games to Goncalves' 1. Finley was invisible his 2 games as the 3rd line center and Goncalves was thrown into the 2LW spot and immediately looked like the best player outside of the Katchouk/Somppi/Raddysh line.

Goncalves also had a dominant WHL season as his teams lead center. He later returned for another game after the WHL season ended to play the 2RW spot, but looked a little less stellar. If I remember correctly, that was a bad game across the board for the entire team. I am curious what position they settle on him playing.
Finley picked up a season ending injury sometime after his 2 games in Syracuse and before his WHL season started, so he missed most of a season worth of development.
Finley is also 6'6". Big players are more prone to being boom or bust and require longer to find their games (think Foote).

Plainly speaking, was drafting Finley a mistake? Maybe.</div></div>

Where are they playing next year? I assume Finley will go back to Spokane right? Is Goncalves ready for Syracuse full time?
Forum: Armchair-GMMon at 1:14 am
Thread: End of season prospect pool assessment
<div class="quote"><div class="quote_t">Quoting: <b>CoopsTroops</b></div><div>A large jump in production was the main factor. From what I understamd, before watching the Crunch regularly, he was a reliable defensive depth forward, but didn't have the offensive touch to really stand out (something that's holding me back from being higher on Fortier). He received a lot of minutes with Raddysh, Katchouk, Denisenko (Florida's top prospect), and on PP1 and looked really good to my eyes. You could argue he was a product of who he played with, but you could have said the same thing with Colton being a product of centering Barre-Boulet's line last season ('19-'20). He might have been closer to a point per game for the season had he not gotten shuffled around a lot with Mitchell Stephens and Heponiemi (FLA prospect) entering and leaving the Syracuse lineup at times during the year.

The closest comparable I have for him on the Lightning is Colton. Somppi goes to the front of the net and has good puck skills in close. He's the closest to not being in the "Future NHLer" column, but I think he would impress in the NHL in a depth role if given the chance. Probably needs another year to fully mature his game.</div></div>

Something else that caught my eye was the fact that Goncalves and Finley are in different tiers, with Goncalves being higher. We obviously traded quite a bit to go an get Finley. Do you think that could end up being a mistake? How has Finley’s development gone so far? I know he’s only been in the lightning system for a year (a COVID year) but what has he shown in that time that would suggest Goncalves is on a better track to the NHL than Finley is?