Monday, 5 March 2012

Canucks pleased with Kassain’s physical play


 VANCOUVER — Vancouver Canucks head coach Alain Vigneault had a message for his players on Sunday but it was not same message he gave himself.
“Take the day off, boys,” he told them.
Then the coach went to work, scrutinizing video from Saturday’s 5-3 loss to the Buffalo Sabres, just the second regulation defeat suffered by the Canucks in their last 20 games.
Nonetheless, there is plenty about which to fret.  More…
Shacks’ Take:  If you read my stuff long enough you’ll realize I try to look at things with a long view.  It was less than a month ago Byron Bitz scored 2 points in his second game when fans were slotting him in as the new top 6 forward we need.  I wasn’t quite so quick to the coronation on that one and I’m not ready to call Kassian the next Neely yet either.  
I like what I’ve seen so far from the big man and I definitely see a higher ceiling for him than Bitz but I’ll reserve my judgment on his impact for this season until he’s played 15 – 20 games in a Canuck jersey.  It’ll take a couple more years at least to try to estimate how good he will be.    

4 comments:

  1. It's Byron not Blair Bitz.

    ReplyDelete
    Replies
    1. Thanks, it was a very flu like day yesterday in the Shacks' house. Hope thats the only one I screwed up.

      Delete
    2. KICKASSIAN! The kids a first rounder for a reason. Yeah if you want to play it really safe you can wait 5 years to assess him. You never know he might be a bust but all signs and logic as I can see point to him being a force on this team for a long time.

      Fiddy

      Delete
  2. Kid's not going to be a bust but Steve Bernier and Taylor Pyatt both looked pretty good for a while. I like what I've seen but I liked what I saw out of Bitz and where is he now? If he keeps playing this way over an extended period I'll really get excited but I'm not ready to call him a star quite yet.

    ReplyDelete