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Hornqvist Is The New Guerin

July 17, 2014, 10:26 AM ET [281 Comments]
Ryan Wilson
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A few weeks back I stumbled upon a graph that I thought highlighted an intriguing difference between Patric Hornqvist and James Neal. For whatever reason I never got around to posting it.

Neither player is going to wow you with their skating, they both shoot the puck a lot, but where they set up shop is drastically different.





If you are amongst the group of people that have been clamoring for the Penguins to start scoring more of the greasy unsexy kind of goals, this chart probably looks really appealing to you.

Hornqvist lives by the goal mouth and that is a good place to be if you are playing with Crosby and/or Malkin.

By excelling in the goal mouth area Hornqvist also has the potential of adding another quality element to an already good power play. A right handed forward who can play hard down low has been something the Penguins have not had in a very long time. The last guy to fit that description was Bill Guerin and the Penguins won the Stanley Cup with him playing on the top line with top power play minutes.

The Penguins power play has been dominated by left handed forwards for years, it will be nice to have somebody right handed on their off wing to set up some back door plays.

James Neal is well known as a shooter but Hornqvist's shooting rate isn't really all that different from Neal.





Hornqvist may go about things differently than James Neal but he will still be an impact player for the Penguins.

Another similarity Hornqvist has to Guerin is his ability to command respect in the locker room. By all accounts Hornqvist was a guy that the other Nashville players looked up to. The same could not be said about James Neal.

Hornqvist is going to provide the Penguins something unique that they haven't had since Bill Guerin, a right handed power forward. And one that isn't in the twilight of his career.

Thanks for reading!

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