Oh wow. Petterson is a middle pairing dman. Good set up player that's tall a lanky. Has trouble putting on weight. So even though he is tall he not very physical. Think he got passed up by josh mahura and jake dochtin on the depth chart. But he's a good pick up by the penguins. Still raw. And he is a above average skater.
Can a penguins fan tell me something about sprong?
- Eman87654
He's been in Sullivan's doghouse from the beginning. It's hard to know what you have in Sprong because he rarely got a look with quality players, although he did fall flat on his face in the preseason on the top line. I know it sounds ridiculous to judge him on the preseason, but the Penguins were trying to hand him the top line RW job. Crosby and Guentzal were basically shredding the minor league talent, and Sprong just bombed. He looked lost. Everything went down hill after that. Recchi came out publicly and said they weren't happy with him. I can't deny it. I watched it. Kid looked terrible.
He definitely has a sick shot, but didn't seem to find himself in position to use it (linemates being crap is the likely cause). The knock on him is defensive awareness. I tend to agree with this. It was certainly Sullivan's issue, but other Pens fans will say otherwise.
Rutherford screwed up a few years ago by keeping him on the roster instead of sending him back to the Q (sent back after 18 games) which unfortunately is why he's waiver eligible. Undoubtedly he would benefit from more time in the AHL. IMO he has a decent chance of developing into a nice player, but I'd say he's more of a project than I originally thought. There's a good chance that a change of scenery makes all the difference. I think Sully beat the kid up too much and his offensive game suffered significantly.....really curios to see if this is the case.