Here's some best bits from the press release:
Meyer boasts a rich international career and comes to us with a clear goal – to make a significant contribution to the effectiveness of our team in attack.
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During his career, Meyer has played in top European leagues, including the Swedish SHL, the German DEL and the ICEHL, in which he won the championship title with Salzburg in the 22/23 and 23/24 seasons. In the 22/23 season, he was the scorer of the decisive goal that brought the "Bulls" the title. In the 18/19 season, while playing for Södertälje SK, he received the award for the best forward, scorer and passer in the Swedish Allsvenskan league.
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Anže Ulčar, director of HK Olimpija: "Nicolai is a versatile forward who reads and understands the game very well and is constantly effective. He has the great quality of being very effective when it is most needed. Of course, we expect him to continue doing so in the green jersey. He will also be a great reinforcement for our dressing room in terms of character."
Thoughts
I love the goalscoring emphasis - but if you look closer, it's not as simple as it seems. You can see this in Mr Ulčar's more couched language of 'character' and 'versatility'. You don't need to mention those when the scoring resumé is impeccable. With Mayer, it isn't.
He had a good year last year in the Allsvenskan, the 2nd division Swedish league. That's obviously a pretty decent standard of play. In 47 games, he had 23 goals and 29 assists for 52 points, more than a point per game. We definitely need someone like that.
However, as you can see on his Elite Prospects page, he hasn't actually been a very consistent scorer, barely breaking 20 goals over the prior two seasons combined. He had an excellent year with Vienna in the ICE League in 21-22, but then only had 3 goals in 40 games in the SHL. That's a very high quality league, but you still want your scoring forward to be doing better than that.
I don't want to be overly negative - just to provide full clarity and truth. I sincerely hope we see another high-scoring season from Mayer under his old boss, but it's clear that he is quite up-and-down and, after last season, may be on for another down year with us. At 31, he's at a good age for us - if this goes well, we can re-sign him with good time left in his career.
At 5'10" and 180lb, he's on the smaller side, but as I said to a follower recently, at this level you're either going to get skill or size, not both. If you have both, you generally belong in a better league (this is why I rate Bohinc so highly - I believe he has both as a D-man). Outside of the imposing Brian Lebler, most of the top scorers in the ICE League are undersized but skilful imports (e.g. VSV's John Hughes and Kevin Hancock). You don't have to have size to perform well in this league. Mayer clearly has skill and I look forward to seeing him use it for our benefit.
Rumours of Gooch
Talking of scoring forwards, it seems that Trevor Gooch is out in Graz. I would love to have our 23-24 top scorer back in Green-and-White. With the added budget of Mr Lefebvre's backing, perhaps we can entice him into a return. If you remember, the club were hopeful that he would re-sign this time last year, so perhaps they can close the deal this time around.
Based on hockey ability alone, would you rather have kept Cerveny or bring back Gooch?
ReplyDeleteThat is a sensational question, thank you. I don't know if I can separate the hockey ability from what I know about the players. I think Gooch seemed to fail a lot more than he succeeded in his attempts to create offense, yet he compiled an astounding amount of points for us. Červeny is more of a pure goal-scorer who doesn't offer the wealth of assists that Gooch does, so I think I'd have to go with 77 over 65. I wish we could have done a Dora the Explorer 'why not both?' moment, but ah well. Who would you rather have?
DeleteIn terms of point totals and performance in the ICE league Gooch is the better option, but I can't ignore the difference in the clubs they've both played for elsewhere. There's a difference between the Alps, Erste and and Danish league versus the Czech league, SHL, Liiga and the KHL. To add to Červeny's point he's only played about half a season here, so it's not really fair to directly compare stats at Olimpija (and/or Graz). Gooch is five years younger, which is not insignificant, but I would still have to disagree with you and pick #65.
ReplyDeleteOutside of on-ice ability I am also not a big fan of bringing back players that left a season or two ago, and didn't necessarily replicate the success with Olimpija in their new clubs. I believe it sends a message that there's always a contract waiting here if things don't work out elsewhere, and I think there aren't many players that should have that "right" reserved in Olimpija.
Is Gooch one of them? I'm honestly not sure. Regardless, if the big news brewing is his return, I hope he proves me wrong, repeats the success he had last time, and stays here for a couple more seasons.
Yes, it's fair to wonder if Gooch has burned his bridges with the organisation after his 'will he, won't he' performance during the re-signing period last summer. Background is a good distinction to make, although you could go back further to junior and say Gooch played with Johnny Gaudreau (RIP), so he's got a better pedigree. That's a bit of a facetious argument, though. Thank you very much for your considered comments!!
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