i think hodgson will definitely be better than eberle. offensively they mite get similar amount of pts, but hodgson (for some reason i have to toughest time spelling his name) is much better defensively and positionally. not to mention all the intangibles like leadership and grit. theres a reason y cody was the CHL player of the year (ahead of pheonom tavares) and was #2 in THN's prospect ranking. eberle will score well in the nhl tho, its not like hes scrub, just not cody's level in terms of overall impact.
on the other hand, im not as excited about shirokov. hes strong on his skate but slow, and his acceleration is bad. in the new nhl if u cant skate, u r most likely not gonna be productive. how many good scorers are slow? hes been dominating the prospect games but dats really no surprise, he is a couple years older than his peers (some of them are 5 yrs younger), and hes been playing in the KHL for a few seasons.
btw, i feel alot less happy about the erhoff deal, since the sharks used dat cap space on heatley. the duo of thornton/heatley is gonna be steamrolling the western conference in the regular season. the top tier teams in the west is so strong its ridiculous! any one of wings/hawks/flames/nucks/sharks/ducks can win the cup.
ps: tonites teh first tiem the nucks r on tv since may (or was it april??), so excited, even if we r playing the islanders lol. no hodgson and no tavares tho, booo!