Afrogator

 

Justin Abdelkader. I'll keep this short and sweet.

Abby has shown flashes of offensive potential in his college and AHL career. He also has a track record for being clutch when his team needs him most. This can be seen most prominently during the 2007 NCAA Championship game in which Abby scores the game winner late in the game.

As for his NHL game? He has grown to become an agitating, defensive, bottom liner. Justin Abdelkader seems to be doing less agitating this season which may be a result of his untimely penalties during the San Jose series last season. I'm okay with this as it was incredibly frustrating to watch him take bad penalties at bad times during the most important time of the season.

Current Stats:

GP • 45
G • 5
A • 6
P • 11

Predictions:

GP • 82
G • 9
A • 12

P •21

I might end up hitting this prediction dead on. #winning

There may be some untapped "Franzen-like" potential in there somewhere. I'm not completely convinced as I really haven't seen anything offensively to write home about. What I do believe, is there may be a Maltby equal in time. Someone that can play strong 3rd line minutes, shut-down the top lines of other teams, and get inside there heads. Maltby was incredible at drawing penalties, something I haven't seen a whole lot of from Abdelkader and hopefully comes with time.

Here's to another Maltby.