Sprong for next to nothing. Before our surge of wins under the new coach, maybe Yzerman would have picked him up. My guess is he doesn’t want to mess with the winning chemistry that is all of a sudden working.
I’d like to see the wings pick up Jonathan Toews. Guess what guys, we are making a playoff push. Getting a solid center man that could play center on lines 2-4 for nothing… that is a gamble worth taking.
I don’t see Yzerman trading any assets for Elias Pettersson. If the wings keep winning, I think Yzerman will stick with his lineup.
- NC_Scott
Short analysis of Sprong:
1. Elite shooter.
2. Great skater.
3. So-so chance creator. He's not really a great distributor (fewer assists than goals, to say nothing of primary assists). A disproportionate percentage of his offense comes from rush offense or turnovers that he buries himself.
4. Completely uninterested in playing anything resembling NHL-level defense. No intensity, poor reads, poor decisions. The complete lack of hustle is especially egregious given how good a skater he is.
Taking emotion out of the equation and thinking in strictly mathematical terms about net on-ice impact, I still kinda think that having a one-dimensional fourth line sniper like Sprong does more good than harm overall. But you have to accept a
lot of harm, and it's the kind of harm (lazy, uninspired, boneheaded defense that screws over his teammates) that very understandably drives coaches (and teammates) absolutely livid. Plus I can imagine it's a royal headache for coaches to have to carefully manage his ice time and shelter him for the vast majority of every single game.
Not surprising he wears out his welcome everywhere, even when he's scoring a bunch of goals. When he's not scoring, though ... woof.
