verage he was at completing passes.1. Colin Kaepernick, San Francisco 49ersC%+: minus-4.4 percentKaepernick star

HELSINKI, Finland -- Finnish goalie Tuukka Rask attempted to make a glove save, but the puck whistled by him into the top corner and rippled the net.The shooter stood in the high slot and showed no reaction to the goal as he waited for another pass from a teammate during practice. The laser-like shot came off the stick of Finnish prospect Patrik Laine, who was the No. 2 overall pick by the Winnipeg Jets in last Junes NHL Entry Draft.Hes a great shooter, said Rask, who has played eight seasons with the Boston Bruins. A big body and a really, really good shooter.There will be a lot of focus on Laine as the 18-year-old forward displays his talents and his 6-foot-4, 206-pound frame for Team Finland at the upcoming World Cup of Hockey, which begins Sept. 17 in Toronto.Hes a natural goal scorer, so if he gets a shot hes pretty much going to score, said Rask. Hes a great threat on the power play. Hes going to score goals. If he doesnt then hell probably get down on himself and might have some issues, but hes going to have an immediate impact for sure.Auston Matthews, the 2016 No. 1 overall pick by the Toronto Maple Leafs, wont be given a major role with Team North America, at least to start the tournament, but thats not the case with Laine. He will be playing on the top line with?Aleksander Barkov?and Jussi Jokinen. Laine will also play on Finlands top power-play unit.With my strengths, you can get more out of me in one or the two top lines, he said. If youre on the third or fourth line, your job is going to be a lot harder with my strengths, so its good that the coaches are counting on me and they know what I can do. Its a huge honor, and I just want to play and have fun on the ice.Competing at the international level is nothing new for Laine (who played for Finland at the 2016 World Junior Championship and the 2016 World Championship) but facing the best in the world on this big of a stage will be a little different.Its a new level for me, he said. Its always nice to be able to play against those top guys in the world. Im excited to play and well see what happens.I just want to be me on the ice and show everybody what I can do, and maybe cant do. I just want to be brave on the ice and show my skills and help my team.Not only is Laine a remarkably talented athlete, his confidence and poise make him a dangerous force on the ice. Nothing seems to bother him. He enjoys the spotlight and wants it shining on him when hes playing. Coaches normally dont like to talk about players on other teams, but everyone is excited to see how Laine will transition to the pro game.Hes got a tremendous skill set, said Sweden coach Rikard Gronborg, whose team will face Laine and Finland in a World Cup exhibition game at noon ET Thursday. The guy can put the puck in the net. He can challenge a player one-on-one. Hes someone we need to be aware of. He can challenge, and he has the shot for sure.Laine is already being compared to former Jets forward -- and fellow Finland native --?Teemu Selanne, who was selected in the first round (No. 10 overall) by the Jets in 1988. Laine does not shy away from those comparisons. Once the NHL season begins and he embarks on his rookie campaign, many believe he has the talent to quickly become his own type of player.A pretty big impact, Gronborg said. Everyone expects him to be a top player on [Winnipeg] and with his age, and his poise and his confidence in himself hell be pretty interesting to see. I expect him to be a top-tier player in the National Hockey League for sure.Finnish team captain -- and Minnesota Wild veteran forward --?Mikko Koivu first saw Laine play last year during the World Championships. During training camp for the World Cup, Koivu has already seen a difference in the young prospect from a physical and strength standpoint.He gained a lot of strength during the offseason and thats usually good for younger players to get better, get stronger. You can see that on the ice, Koivu said. Obviously its different in practice from what its going to be in a game but he looks pretty good so far.Laine is entering a whole new world of talented hockey players and it begins when he steps onto the ice at Hartwall Arena on Thursday night to face Sweden in a World Cup of Hockey preseason game. Star goalie Henrik Lundqvist is not starting that game for Sweden, but it doesnt matter to Laine. I dont care who is in the net, he said. I want to help my team -- and hopefully I can score in my first game.Wholesale NFL Jerseys USA . Marincin has played in two NHL games so far this season with two penalty minutes. The 21-year-old has three goals, four assists and a plus-5 rating in 24 games with the American Hockey Leagues Oklahoma City Barons this season. Wholesale NFL Jerseys . The Croatian served 21 aces and hit 42 winners against Sijsling, who double-faulted to give Cilic a 4-3 lead in the deciding set. "All the players, they know me and they were really happy to see me and they were really happy that this is over for me," Cilic said. https://www.cheapnfljerseysjustwholesale.com/ . Anthony Calvillo, through 20 CFL seasons, was frequently invincible and largely stoic in the heat of competition. But underneath the professional exterior he was, and is, compellingly human. Cheap MLB Jerseys .J. -- Seven games into a disappointing season, New York Giants defensive catalyst Jason Pierre-Paul is getting the feeling hes back. Cheap NFL Jerseys . It was the kind of score that might make everyone else wonder which course he was playing. Except that Graeme McDowell saw the whole thing. Crouched behind the 10th green at Sheshan International, McDowell looked over at the powerful American and said, "Ive probably seen 18 of the best drives Ive seen all year in the last two days.Last week, we looked at the 10 most accurate passers from the 2015 NFL season using a metric (C%+) that adjusts for where the ball is thrown. Most of the usual suspects made the list, but what about the quarterbacks at the bottom?The bottom three were bad enough that none of these players figure to be a factor in 2016. Nick Foles (minus-6.6 percent) was released and went to Kansas City. Johnny Manziel (minus-4.9 percent) is currently not in the league. Ryan Mallett (minus-4.9 percent) is a backup in Baltimore.Peyton Manning (minus-1.1 percent), who also ranked among the worst, showed it was time to retire after the first below-average season of his career.But that still leaves six quarterbacks in the bottom 10 who figure to be a factor this year. The following is a look at those six quarterbacks, ranked by ascending C%+ from the 2015 regular season.First, here is a refresher on how C%+ is calculated. The core idea is passing plus-minus, which estimates how many passes a quarterback completed compared to what an average quarterback would have completed, given the location of those passes. It does not consider passes listed as thrown away, tipped at line or quarterback hit in motion. Player performance is compared to a historical baseline of how often a pass is completed based on the pass distance, thee yards needed for a first down, and whether it is on the left, middle or right side of the field.ddddddddddddBecause we care only about whether or not the pass was completed with this stat, dropped passes can be accounted for favorably for the quarterback. Once we have the drop-adjusted plus-minus total, it can be divided by the number of passes to get an adjusted rate we denote as C%+.A quarterbacks C%+ is how many percentage points better or worse than average he was at completing passes.1. Colin Kaepernick, San Francisco 49ersC%+: minus-4.4 percentKaepernick started off his career in 2012 with a great C%+ (7.3 percent) in a vertical offense, but he has declined every year since. Always more of a thrower than a precision passer, last season was especially bad as Kaepernick struggled to locate receivers, let alone deliver accurate passes. The most troubling fact was that his average pass distance dropped to 7.7 yards beyond the line of scrimmage after being in the 9.5-9.8 range in the previous three seasons. So even though his passes were shorter, he was worse at completing them. Now you can start to see why he may be benched (again) for Blaine Gabbert in San Francisco. ' ' '