Re: Official 2012-13 Miami Season Thread: Baby boom!
As was stated before, Kuraly is a natural center, and IIRC he has the best faceoff win % on the team, an area that the team as a whole could definitely improve upon.
Goining into tOSU:
Austin Czarnik 146-186 .440
Blake Coleman 110 -106 .509
Sean Kuraly 142-92 .607
Kevin Morris 52-64 .448
You're right, it would be hard to move him out of the dot with those numbers. Although without looking, I don't recall a point in the last few years when we had two centermen above .500 at the halfway point, so (by our standards) that area may actually be improving.
It has seemed like Kuraly found his legs the last few weeks. He's been exceptionally strong on the puck and his speed is starting to generate the chances we were expecting, he just hasn't figured out what to do once he finds himself in position to make a play. Given his numbers from last season, especially factoring in the jump between year 1 and year 2 for him in the USHL - gotta imagine the scoring/playmaking will show up shortly. As is, I think he's still been very noticeable (in a positive way), even without showing up on the scoresheet.
Saw Kuraly has been playing on a line with the artist formerly known as BIGGS out at WJCamp. Ahh, what could have been.
Barber was paired up with Galchenyuk and Trocheck, two of the more prolific scorers on this years' team, if we had any doubts that Riley was going to get a serious look, that alone should assuage them. We may be a little shorthanded heading out to da 'Burgh. Might be a good time to plug Mullin up top for a couple games and see if a reunion with Czarnik can spark him a bit, although my vote would be first line minutes for Little Wides!!