rumrokh
THORBS
- Mar 10, 2006
- 10,109
- 3,285
If you've watched any of the Rivermen games, you could easily see that he does in fact make the players around him better. Two games against Grand Rapids comes to mind. They simply did not have an answer for him. I'm not sure how many points he had in those games, but he completely dominated every shift. Grand Rapids has quite a few borderline NHL players too(Nyquist, Tatar, Jurco etc) and they couldn't stop him. Even the Grand Rapids announcer was talking about how he was moving the puck at will. I've seen one other game where he took over almost every shift too, but can't remember the team. The points might not be impressive, but his play has been very good. He's almost always one of Peoria's top forwards.
Bingo. Papineau, Trudel, Whitfield, etc. are examples of guys who are able to do well in the minors due to physical skills, but they don't have the hockey sense to do anything in the NHL. Peoria is a bad team and Schwartz doesn't have a lot to work with. For all of the guys who tore up the minors and couldn't hack it at the highest level, there are guys who don't rack up points in the minors, but make an impact in the NHL and never look back. David Backes, for example.
Is that a reason to think Schwartz could or should be a replacement for McDonald in the next two years? No way. If Andy could keep from getting more concussions, he could play at his current level for a long time. Age is just a number for fitness freaks with his speed and intelligence. And I agree that Schwartz, like most young players, will most likely take a few years before he's a serious impact player. I just don't think the NHL/AHL production of players with average or worse hockey sense is relevant to him at all.