The Rise of Damon Severson

[NJDfan1711]

On 1/17/2017 at 4:56 PM, sundstrom said:

I cut this up a little, but this is just not fair. I don't think ANYONE really mentioned Niedermayer in any way as a comparison or potential for Severson. Scott Niedermayer is one of the 10 best defensemen to ever play the game and might be the best skater in NHL history. add the fact that he could play in all situations and play enormous minutes with almost no dropoff in ability along with the fact that his mistakes were so rare and putting the two names in the same sentence other than to say that their uniform numbers both start with "2" is just not fair.

I didn't say anything about it being fair or not, and I'm not saying that he should or is being held to a higher or impossible standard.  I'm just saying, in my opinion, I see similarities in his game to Niedermayer's.

• Nieds was fast, which Severson has shown he can be.  
• Nieds had a knack for scoring and could jump into the play and pinch when needed, and also break into the zone, which Severson has shown he can also do (at least in that rookie year, for sure).  
• Nieds was reliable in his own end, and like you said he logged a lot of minutes as required, usually between 20-25 per night.  Severson is making mistakes that a rookie/guy less than 3 years in the league would be expected to make but I think is still considered very reliable, and in terms of minutes, he's also averaging right around 21-22 minutes a game.  
• Through their first three seasons (using that as a base since that's as long as Severson's been in the league so far), Nieds had 107 PIM, and with about 35 games left this year, Severson has 93 for his career.
• If not for a bad year last year, Severson's shooting percentage for his career so far would be an even 5%, not far behind Nieds' career of 7.1%, and Severson of course has a lot of time to improve that number.
• Nieds was 6'1" 194lbs.  Severson is 6'2" 205lbs.  
• Both of them are Canadian.  

Obviously it's harsh to compare and try to fill shoes of a guy like Niedermayer, and this early into Severson's career I'm certainly not going to hold him to those expectations, all I'm saying is that I think it's pretty easy to draw some comparisons between the two, for the reasons I just mentioned.