Marcus Nilson

Marcus Nilson is not a terrible hockey player. He's been grouped with a couple of players that are pretty much terrible (Eriksson, Warrener) but he's easily the class of that group. He scored 4 goals and 6pts for Sweden in this year's World Hockey Championships which to me shows that he must still have some gas left in the tank (more goals by the way than he had all year for the Flames). How much gas is of course up for debate.

I don't think we can claim that Mike Keenan was putting Nilson in a tremendously bad position. He was playing the absolute worst competition and at times his linemates were downright middle of the pack. Certainly he wasn't getting a lot of icetime, but I think Keenan was justified in restricting Nilson's icetime.

The best thing that can be said about Nilson, and it can't be said of everyone, is that he wasn't drowning in his position. He was at worst treading water and if his job is to stop his opponents from scoring he is succeeding.

Projection: 4th liner
Key Stat: 1st overall in GAON