NHL.com has an article up highlighting players that are 21 and under. Like the over-35 article that highlights Slava Kozlov, this one has a first and second team. Zach Bogosian made the second team as a defenseman behind LA’s Drew Doughty and St. Louis’ Erik Johnson. Johnson was solid in his rookie year but missed all of last season, so I’d prefer to see Bogosian or even Luke Schenn (the other second team d-man) ahead of him, but that’s a minor issue. What bugs me about the article is that 21-year-old Bryan Little isn’t on either team nor listed as an honorable mention, despite scoring 31 goals last season.
Their top forwards are:
First Team- Jordan Staal, Patrick Kane and Jonathan Toews ( a solid group, though Little scored more last season than Staal has in any single season)
Second Team- Steven Stamkos, Kyle Okposo and Milan Lucic
Honorable mentions- David Perron and Sam Gagner
I think an argument can be made that Bryan Little has done more in his career so far than Kyle Okposo, but Okposo was the best player on a very bad team and would have had better numbers playing with NHL-caliber linemates all year. Stamkos had a terrible start but came on strong and has tremendous potential, so I’m okay with him being on the list. After that it gets sketchy.
I love Milan Lucic as a player and I’d take him on my team any day of the week and twice on Sunday, but statistically Bryan Little is a more talented player. Lucic does everything- he hits, fights, and scores- so maybe the numbers don’t matter as much (his career high is 17 goals and 42 points compared to Little’s 31 goals and 51 points). I can settle for that being a wash or Lucic getting the edge for his physical play.
But David Perron and Sam Gagner? Neither of them has scored 20 goals in a season, let alone 30, and neither has hit the 50 point plateau. Little is -7 in his NHL career. Gagner is -22. Perron has played 16 more games than Little and has three fewer goals in his career than Little had LAST SEASON. Little scored on 18% of his shots last season, the fourth highest total of any player scoring 30 or more goals, and has shown that he’s a legit NHL sniper.
There is simply no way that Sam Gagner and David Perron should both be considered better NHL player than Bryan Little at this point. No way.
Pretty difficult to argue with Little’s snub, but the Thrashers are a bad team in a southern US market. Snubs are par for the course, sadly.
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Atlanta gets little love in the hockey press. I guarantee that Slava wouldn’t have had that love had he never played for a team like Detroit and been so successful early in his career. Just another reason why we as fans have to rally around our team, along with some on ice success and we’ll show all of the NHL what we already know in Atlanta, we have a special team
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Ya I’m with you on this one Ben. It just goes to show just what the league thinks of the “Atlanta based hockey team” now a days. Good grief it’s like this team needs to win the Stanley Cup just to get any recognition for anything…it’s disgusting.
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I’d just as soon keep Little off of the radar. Let them believe that these other, lesser productive players are better!
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Chill, everyone. At first my dander was up about Little’s omission, too, until I noticed this from the article:
“Here’s a look at the NHL’s best players who don’t turn 22 until 2010 and have played at least 40 games (except where noted) — meaning that no 2009 draft picks are included.”
Bryan Little turns 22 on November 12, 2009, so he doesn’t qualify.
And, for the record, there was a crapload of great players 21 or younger last season similarly “snubbed”: Sidney Crosby, Nicklas Backstrom, Phil Kessel, Bobby Ryan and Anze Kopitar, anyone?
We Thrashers fans are an understandably sensitive lot, but let’s be sure our righteous indignation is earned.
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Somehow I missed that caveat (obviously) Thanks for pointing it out.
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here’s a quick article in which bryan little’s success is rightfully noticed: http://www.thehockeynews.com/articles/27594-THNcom-Blog-Future-franchise-players.html
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Pingback: Little Gets Some Love « Blueland Blog: The Official Blog Of The Atlanta Thrashers
My husband and I have had the pleasure of watching Bryan Little play (OHL – Barrie Colts) for many years. To our delight we watch every Atlanta Thrasher game since he was drafted. Last year being his first full play NHL years – we have always been myphed as to why he has not been mentioned more by the media. This is almost an unforgivable oversight. Bryan is an extremely talented player and moreover a true ambassador for the sport. He loves hockey and will get better and better and better. He is no ‘flash in the pan”. I believe he has already earned his right to be mentioned in the media and shame on them for not showing some fairness. Perhaps it depends on the team you play with or political lobbying – just like everything else these days. Most disappointing. We applaud Bryan and look forward to many years of following his career. Whether or not he receives notarity from his skill and ability or not would not affect his love and talent for hockey – of that I am sure.
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So let’s win that Cup and show the world that we’re a serious team! Or at least win a few playoff games. But I agree with James, this really is on par for the course. We never get love, so let’s not focus on the snubs, let’s focus on when they do decide to dole out a bit of verbal homage to our players. Congrats to Kozy and Bogo.
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