I went into this year expecting him to be a near franchise savior and future 1C. Maybe a bit unrealistic, but him being a future 1C I really didn’t feel like was.

Watching his play he looks skilled as ever, and his production is about where I’d expect, but a few things bug me about him. Whenever I watch clips of him he always seems to be playing on the perimeter, which is more a wing thing than a center thing. He also hasn’t really bulked up like I expected him too.

Another thing that concerned me was the IIHF. Like I understand he was just coming off COVID and we had Zegras-performance expectations from him but the dude did not look good. He looked slow, uncertain and not nearly as good as people he was supposed to be better than. Also he didn’t even make the Olympic starting roster, which frankly concerns me because I’m sorry but in my mind there’s no fucking way he’s worse than the has-been fossils they’re trotting out. (Might have to do with seniority, but I digress).

I feel like once again we’ve failed to get that 1C we really need to actually contend in the future. I know Sillinger looks great for his age but I don’t think he’ll top out as a 1C, and there’s no way we luck out in the lottery to get Cooley or Wright, so idek where we are now.

EDIT: For the record I don’t think he’ll be a bad player or anything, I actually think in all likelihood he’ll be good. He’ll fill out, and for what it’s worth he seems to have great game sense and from what I’ve gathered seems to only be getting smarter, but yeah, feel like his development has a lot of bearing on how this team gets shaped in the future and I fear a situation where Cole Sillinger (who in my realistic mind tops out as a slightly better Bo Horvat type) will be our best center when we have cup ambitions

EDIT 2: I have no idea why I’m getting downvoted en masse, just talking about something. Not even bitching or calling for anyone’s head, it’s just a topic to be discussed