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I've been planning to make a thread like this for a while, but tonight I finally had a good reason to do so.
Got to see Lazar play live for the first time this year, and he lived up to my every expectation. He really is a coaches dream.
A couple things worth pointing out for those who haven't had a lot of opportunity to see him play so can only go off the stats: First, the Oil Kings aren't quite such a good team as their record indicates; they are extremely well coached, play a tight-checking, defensive game with an all-star goalie, and have really just two major offensive threats - they're the best defensive team in the East and most of their wins come in low-scoring 2-1 type affairs. Second, the coach likes to roll four lines, and strongly emphasizes very short shifts, and Lazar, being such a smart, coachable player, buys in fully; he only had a couple shifts tonight more than forty seconds, and many were under 30, which makes it hard to get into much of an offensive groove at even strength (and in fact his two points came on special teams - a PPG and a SHA). Third, Lazar truly is a defense-first and team-first player; he's clearly far less concerned with personal stats than he is with being the first guy back every time, being the deepest forward in his own end, and doing everything he can to help his team win.
It is also interesting to note that while he played about half the game on the top line with Samuelsson and Moroz, he spent about half the night on various different lines as the coach was trying to create more depth and balance - just another example of his versatility and willingness to do whatever it takes to win.
The first thing I noticed was how much the coach trusts him in every situation. Still just 18 and he's first unit PP, first unit PK, taking faceoffs in the offensive and defensive zones, and in fact he played at least 1:30 of every penalty kill - at one point when the game was tied early, he had been out for over a minute on the PK, then went back to the bench after the whistle but the coach sent him back out to finish the kill.
As everyone already knows, his skating, acceleration and shot are outstanding. His on-ice awareness without the puck is first-class, both in the defensive and offensive zone. His goal tonight came on the powerplay and was quite simply his nose for the net putting him in the right place at the right time to tap in an easy rebound. His awareness with the puck is good too; last year when I saw him I thought he lacked creativity, but now I realized that while this is surely partly the case, it is also largely that he just makes the easy play every time instead of the creative one. Which doesn't always make for creating offense, but very rarely makes for breaks going the other way. So while this indicates that he will never be an offensive superstar in the NHL, nobody ever made the mistake of thinking he would be. What it indicates more to me is that he is as much a sure-fire NHLer as just about any prospect I've seen lately, as any coach is going to love to have Lazar on his team.
His game still has some growing to do obviously, mostly in the strength-department, which is good enough for junior, but won't win him many puck battles at the pro level right now. But with his skating, shot, smarts and hockey savvy, if he was 5-10 pounds heavier he could be playing in the NHL right now without being a liability to his team. That said, he could probably use another couple years of development to build muscle and work on his stick skills, but he is perfectly on track to develop into exactly what we drafted him to be, a second/third line center/wing (he plays center for Edmonton, but likely projects better to RW at the pro-level) who will likely average 25-30 goals and 50-60 points, as well as play 1st unit PK and match against other team's top lines. 35 goals in his prime is plausible, but perhaps a stretch.
As for a current NHL comparison, I'd look for him to end up somewhere between an Andrew Cogliano/David Legwand on the lower end, and a Logan Couture on the higher end. His offensive output will likely be closer to the lower end, but in a lot of ways his defensive game and goal-scoring ability reminds me of a better-skating version of Logan Couture.
Got to see Lazar play live for the first time this year, and he lived up to my every expectation. He really is a coaches dream.
A couple things worth pointing out for those who haven't had a lot of opportunity to see him play so can only go off the stats: First, the Oil Kings aren't quite such a good team as their record indicates; they are extremely well coached, play a tight-checking, defensive game with an all-star goalie, and have really just two major offensive threats - they're the best defensive team in the East and most of their wins come in low-scoring 2-1 type affairs. Second, the coach likes to roll four lines, and strongly emphasizes very short shifts, and Lazar, being such a smart, coachable player, buys in fully; he only had a couple shifts tonight more than forty seconds, and many were under 30, which makes it hard to get into much of an offensive groove at even strength (and in fact his two points came on special teams - a PPG and a SHA). Third, Lazar truly is a defense-first and team-first player; he's clearly far less concerned with personal stats than he is with being the first guy back every time, being the deepest forward in his own end, and doing everything he can to help his team win.
It is also interesting to note that while he played about half the game on the top line with Samuelsson and Moroz, he spent about half the night on various different lines as the coach was trying to create more depth and balance - just another example of his versatility and willingness to do whatever it takes to win.
The first thing I noticed was how much the coach trusts him in every situation. Still just 18 and he's first unit PP, first unit PK, taking faceoffs in the offensive and defensive zones, and in fact he played at least 1:30 of every penalty kill - at one point when the game was tied early, he had been out for over a minute on the PK, then went back to the bench after the whistle but the coach sent him back out to finish the kill.
As everyone already knows, his skating, acceleration and shot are outstanding. His on-ice awareness without the puck is first-class, both in the defensive and offensive zone. His goal tonight came on the powerplay and was quite simply his nose for the net putting him in the right place at the right time to tap in an easy rebound. His awareness with the puck is good too; last year when I saw him I thought he lacked creativity, but now I realized that while this is surely partly the case, it is also largely that he just makes the easy play every time instead of the creative one. Which doesn't always make for creating offense, but very rarely makes for breaks going the other way. So while this indicates that he will never be an offensive superstar in the NHL, nobody ever made the mistake of thinking he would be. What it indicates more to me is that he is as much a sure-fire NHLer as just about any prospect I've seen lately, as any coach is going to love to have Lazar on his team.
His game still has some growing to do obviously, mostly in the strength-department, which is good enough for junior, but won't win him many puck battles at the pro level right now. But with his skating, shot, smarts and hockey savvy, if he was 5-10 pounds heavier he could be playing in the NHL right now without being a liability to his team. That said, he could probably use another couple years of development to build muscle and work on his stick skills, but he is perfectly on track to develop into exactly what we drafted him to be, a second/third line center/wing (he plays center for Edmonton, but likely projects better to RW at the pro-level) who will likely average 25-30 goals and 50-60 points, as well as play 1st unit PK and match against other team's top lines. 35 goals in his prime is plausible, but perhaps a stretch.
As for a current NHL comparison, I'd look for him to end up somewhere between an Andrew Cogliano/David Legwand on the lower end, and a Logan Couture on the higher end. His offensive output will likely be closer to the lower end, but in a lot of ways his defensive game and goal-scoring ability reminds me of a better-skating version of Logan Couture.
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