You know I’m a fan of the team, and I’m not against talking up your players a little bit. There is a line, though, when optimistic reality devolves into misguided fantasy and Craig Stancher crossed it in this little piece on the Avs official site. At issue is the section on Tyler Arnason:
He [Armason] expects to play much the same role as he did a year ago; that of a valuable two-way forward who is vital to the team’s success.
“I think I’ll be able to add some scoring to the third line and work hard not to get scored on,” said Arnason. “Basically the same role I played last year.”
Two-way forward? Are we talking about the same guy? Because I’m thinking about the Tyler Arnason who won just 43% of his faceoffs last year, recorded just 2 hits, and was a team worst -8. There are a lot of ways you can describe Tyler Arnason. Many of them are favorable. “Two-way forward” is not - nor will it likely ever be - one of them. Let’s not get too carried away, Craig.
I’m a huge Tyler Arnason fan, I have to admit, but valuable two-way forward he is not. When he remembers that he’s a good hockey player, he’s an offensive whiz. When he forgets, he’s pretty much useless on the ice.
I’m pro-Arny and I want the Avs to keep him around, but I agree that we all need to keep ourselves grounded in reality.
Arnason is average defensively. He’s not bad. +/- is not a stat that measures anything at all as far as individual players go, and hits, giveaways and takeaways are all subjectively recorded, and thus are meaningless as well.
I wouldn’t go so far as to call him a two-way forward, but there are certainly more one-dimensional players out there.
arnason is a pretty decent player. i think he’s a valuable guy to have around on your 3rd or 4th line for his scoring touch, though i would have preferred to keep Brett Mclean instead of him at the same money — Brett’s not quite the offensive talent of Arnason, but much more solid defensively.
what I can’t figure is why Arnason plays center. his game seems much better suited to being a winger, with all the shoot first tendency, poor defensive ability, poor faceoff percentage, and questionable mental focus. I think he makes particular sense as a winger to hlinka and svatos on the 3rd line.