wprager
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Number of posts : 52870
Age : 63
Location : Kanata
Favorite Team : Ottawa
Registration date : 2008-08-05
NEELY wrote: TheAvatar wrote:On 730AM Radio, every morning, Pat Burns has a daily 1/2 hour segment (it's awesome). He was talking about Jason Spezza and the fact that he had spent quite a bit of time with him during the world tournament last year.
Basically, he said that Spezz was a good kid; a guy that loves everything about hockey except hard work. Loves hanging out with the guys, loves to laugh and thinks everything is funny.
At one point, Burns pulled him aside and asked him what he wanted to do with his career. Asked him if he wanted to be another Lindros, a guy that had an impact, a bunch of medals but who never won anything in the NLH. He says Spezz looked at him with a "what are you talking about look" ...
Burns said that Spezza was lucky to play on a line with Heatley. Said Heatley was a very smart player who knows exactly what's going on on the ice and a tireless worker.
He finished the thing by saying that Spezza needed to gain maturity; preferably this century but he wasn't sure whether there was enough time left to the century.
Cheers.
The part about Spezza is pretty amazing...
Same with the part about Heatley. He was so dead wrong about him. "Tireless worker"???!
And I'll still say what I said before -- Alfie and Heatley *imrpoved* their point production playing with Spezza. Sezza is a PPG player over his career, and he spent most of it playing without Heatley and Alfie (recall that Alfie was primarily a 2nd line winger the last few years, even if he got reunited with Spezza late in games when they were down). 50 assists and top-four in the league in 2011-12 (Alfie didn't crack 60 points that year).
Look, both Spezza and Alfie had a huge boost to their stats in 2004-05 when Heatley came in. That was the best line in the league for 3-4 years and it wasn't due to any single one individual. All three of them benefited from playing together. Neither Heatley nor Alfie were as dominant since then, but Spezza was top-4 in scoring since then. Points isn't everything, of course, but no-one would accuse Heatley of being a dominant defensive force either.
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