In Praise Of Prospects Who Don’t Make It

Photo by Darcy Finley/NHLI via Getty ImagesThis week I gave up on Adam Brooks. It’s not that I don’t think he’s got anything to offer as a person or as a hockey player, it’s not that I don’t think he can continue his professional career once a vaccine chases off the first Horseman of the Apocalypse. It’s that I have two brains for every prospect, and the fun one finally lost.

The fun brain says that Adam Brooks, a slightly undersized centre, is one of the players I’ve liked rooting for since he was drafted in 2016. That draft, you may recall, was conducted under the auspices of Lou Lamoriello and Mark Hunter, but Brooks always felt to me like a Kyle Dubas pick. He was and is a little small,…