Jump to content
The Official Site of the Vancouver Canucks
Canucks Community

Who's better Higgins or Booth


kj29

Higgins or Booth  

175 members have voted

You do not have permission to vote in this poll, or see the poll results. Please sign in or register to vote in this poll.

Recommended Posts

Upside for offensive impact: Booth

Consistency and Jack-of-all-trades: Higgins

They are both sides on the "important to this team" coin, since the team wouldn't be complete without these two should-be Top 6 players (at worst, Higgins for 3rd line).

Link to comment
Share on other sites

Higgins has already come to a limit on his natural ability > what you see is what you get. And that saw better players steal his top line and PP time in cities like NY, Montreal and Calgary. Which saw Higgins perhaps on his way out of the NHL (much like Malhotra 6 or 8 years earlier). The great news is he made a decision both to be an NHL player, and accept whatever role he could get as a challenge. This is again like Malhotra, but also guys like Steve Bernier or Taylor Pyatt who are now effective role players passed their days of promise. And now that he has realized his fate, no Canuck (save Hansen perhaps?) works harder at digging out the puck, winning puck battles, checking..., than Higgins!

This was a good comparison, as Booth is really the Higgins of 4 years ago > still being given a chance to develop his talent into a top 2 line force. Plus he has 10 plus lbs of extra honest size and muscle, the same (or more dynamic) speed and roughly the same offensive skillset. And hopefully young and dynamic ability to grow his game people once hoped Higgins had in Montreal. For now, the main advantage goes to Booth, as his brute force wins physical match ups and he still has the possibility of upside where Higgins has peaked.

While I hope Booth develops that offensive upside, what I really hope is that he learns that work ethic that now defines guys like Burrows, Malhotra and Higgins. I don't see Booth developing into a 70 or 80 point guy. Jensen will come on to that line and offer a substantial upgrade in natural scoring abilities. What Kesler and Jensen will need is a guy like Higgins, or Booth with his extra size if he learns it, to do their digging, plugging and forechecking. Thats what I see in Booths future, a bigger faster and stronger version of Bernier, Higgins, Pyatt... Chipping in some goals will be a bonus!

Depends how you define "better"

Higgins is a better all around player. Can shut down opponents on the 3rd, or play spot duty on the 2nd.

Booth is more dynamic offensively. Has the dangles and can power through opponents. Passing and defence are not his strong suits however.

Link to comment
Share on other sites

They are very close overall, but obviously they have their advantages.

Booth is a much better hitter, much faster skater, takes the puck harder to the net and is better around the crease.

Higgins is much more consistent, has a very underated shot, better defensively, better deflector of shots and better forechecker.

They're so similar but good to have on the same team.

Link to comment
Share on other sites

Got to remember too that Booth played his entire career in Florida and they where never serious playoff contendors. I don't know what the hockey culture out there was really like but playing in Van could have a huge impact on him as a player who has a really good skill set. In all fairness he hasn't even played a year in the system and he was looking pretty darn good before he got clipped against Edmonton.

Link to comment
Share on other sites

Voted booth, higgins is a great all round player that does almot everything right on the ice, I think can be a 30 goal player with us if he can get his groove on, He would have probably had 5 more goals this year is he had converted on half of his breakaways.

Link to comment
Share on other sites

This is a close call and reasonable people can go either way. The disturbing thing is that Higgins signed as a UFA for a cap hit of under $2 million last year, and Booth has a cap hit of over $4 million.

This can only mean that Booth is overpaid.

Booth has more goal-scoring potential but if he is not scoring goals he does not do much else. Higgins can score but he can also play shutdown and play on the PK, and he is more of a playmaker. And he is more consistent.

Booth is the kind of guy who needs to play top 6 because he can't really to the job of a bottom 6 guy. Higgins can play effectively anywhere in lineup.

Booth needs to improve his play to justify his cap hit.

Link to comment
Share on other sites

Archived

This topic is now archived and is closed to further replies.

  • Recently Browsing   0 members

    • No registered users viewing this page.
×
×
  • Create New...