2 years is a nice win on term for Elliott. Mason is more likely to be better next season than Elliott, but he'd want more term and probably a guaranteed starter's role. Can understand why the organization didn't want to do that with the 4-5 guys they have in the system.
Patrick had surgery on June 13th for another abdominal injury. Going to miss development camp. This is why we should consider taking it slow with him. It's probably a good thing we have center depth now with Lehtera, as weak as he is.
Hovercraft wrote: Patrick had surgery on June 13th for another abdominal injury. Going to miss development camp. This is why we should consider taking it slow with him. It's probably a good thing we have center depth now with Lehtera, as weak as he is.
I continue to find this logic a bit baffling. It made a bit more sense with Konecny given his size and the type of injury ... but I don't think Patrick is less susceptible to sports hernia than he would be here. Moreover, it sounds like this surgery was explicitly to fix a problem from *last summer* that the doctors up in Brandon missed/fucked up.
I don't even necessarily mean putting him back in juniors, just ease him into hard nhl minutes. Sports hernias are career impacting injuries. Luckily it's only June so he has lots of time to get healthy and train before the season starts.
Speaking of easing him in, it seems odd to me that nobody is discussing the idea of Patrick playing wing this year since we have too many centers
Winnipeg has given Mason 4.1 for each of 2 years. Hartnell for 1 year, 1 Million to Nashville and 4.5 per year for two years to Williams who is back with the Hurricanes. Good deals for both but am happy that Hexy wasn't handing them out because it is quite unnecessary for us. Mason would have been decent to keep at that price but I guess it's okay.
Also apparently Pierre McGuire made some weird comment about someone elses Penis on live TV or something. Didn't look into it but the mods on /r/hockey are constantly deleting threads about it and users continue to open new ones.
Pierre was also sitting next to Jeff O'Neill on the panel. I'm pretty sure O'Neill has implicitly called Pierre a creep on TSN radio.
chaosof99 wrote: Also apparently Pierre McGuire made some weird comment about someone elses Penis on live TV or something. Didn't look into it but the mods on /r/hockey are constantly deleting threads about it and users continue to open new ones.
I would have liked to have seen Mason and Hartnell back on those terms, because it wouldn't have messed with the extensions of Provorov, Simmonds, and Konecny. But it is what it is.
Nashville, meanwhile, has done a good job bolstering their blueline, and adding some scoring to help replace what they lost in Neal.
2 x 3 mil isn't a bad deal for MDZ and the Nucks. Stop gap while they develop their younger players.
Hovercraft wrote: 2 x 3 mil isn't a bad deal for MDZ and the Nucks. Stop gap while they develop their younger players.
He's an offense-first D that hasn't cleared 20 pts in 3 of the last 4 years, and looked godawful for us last year for a long stretch. The D market is silly, but him getting $6M guaranteed off that stretch is pretty damn remarkable.
Doesn't it take a $3 million salary to afford an apartment in Vancouver now? I think he's making roughly minimum wage for that city
Tyler Dellow had a pretty interesting point yesterday about how rare it is for 21 year-old d-men who spend the year in the AHL to develop into top-4 guys. Something like 19 out of 195 he looked at. Morin and Hagg both spent their age 21s in the AHL last year, looks like Sanheim will this year.
I don't think the idea here for the Flyers is as much "Morin/Hagg/Sanheim will probably bust" as it is "many/most d-men that take on NHL top-4 roles are ready to play in the NHL by age 21." I think marinating guys in the AHL can be attractive to GMs because it helps them avoid criticism, but I think it's fair to start wondering a bit about the Flyers strategy here and I'd also apply that to forwards.
For ex., I don't have particularly high hopes for NAK, but it's much easier to say "well we only gave him bottom-six minutes in the AHL, so he needs to get top-six minutes in the AHL this year" rather than actually figuring out whether he's good at professional hockey.
They've done the same thing with Laughton/Weal. We have no idea if those guys are NHL players despite the fact that Laughton is a 2012 draftee, Weal is a 2010 draftee and there's abundance of data saying that both should be solidly in their primes by now.
It's very easy to sell "the future" to fans nowadays; look at the Sixers. It's July and most Flyers fans I know/read online are viewing this season as a write-off (doesn't matter if we don't make the playoffs, etc.). So, by that thought, by summer 2018, we will have had this group of "best D prospects in the league" for 4-5 years and still won't know how good a lot of them are; particularly if one of them gets saddled playing with AMac this year. I can already see the "Hagg might be good but we don't know because he spent a ton of time with AMac" articles in summer 2018 that we're seeing with Provorov this time around.
Tl;dr -- I thought about this because it seems like Sanheim/Myers have the highest ceiling of our D prospects and I think Sanheim should be in the NHL this year to see if he's actually good and so that we could get a couple years of Provorov/Sanheim on their ELCs.
By the same logic, Morin and Hagg should also be in the NHL this year to see if they're actually good, and there's just not 4 open spaces.
Also, the fact that most top 4 defensemen are in the NHL at 21 doesn't mean: a) that they're actually good NHL players at 21, or b) that guys who spend that year in the AHL are harmed.
I think there's a pretty strong argument to be made that all 3 should be in the NHL this year. If AMac/Manning are legitimately better than a 21 year-old Sanheim with 3 full years of junior and a year of pro hockey under his belt, does it really seem logical that another year of AHL hockey will help Sanheim make a magical leap to become a valuable NHL d-man?
And sure, they aren't necessarily harmed. But at the same type, the org isn't gaining any info to help them make a meaningful evaluation of the player.
I think you just gotta take Morin and put him to the side. Guys his size often seem to take a bit longer to develop. Also, as noted, I'm not convinced that analysis asks all the right questions. For starters, did getting to the NHL too early delay development in some guys?
That being said, I fully expect to see Sanheim in games this year. And, honestly, whether we get ELC years from Sanheim, etc. is irrelevant. You only really benefit from that if you are competing and need cost control contracts on the roster. Not a problem for the flyers.
FlyHigh wrote: I think there's a pretty strong argument to be made that all 3 should be in the NHL this year. If AMac/Manning are legitimately better than a 21 year-old Sanheim with 3 full years of junior and a year of pro hockey under his belt, does it really seem logical that another year of AHL hockey will help Sanheim make a magical leap to become a valuable NHL d-man?
They don't have to be better than Sanheim for Sanheim to continue developing the defensive side of his game in the AHL. How much individual attention do you think he can get to improve his game from an NHL staff focused on winning NHL games AND focused on instructing two other rookie defensemen? There's only so much teaching time that can go around.
Re: Morin, let's look at guys in the NHL around his height that are established and how much lower-league experience they got before going to the NHL after they were drafted.
As a sidenote, probably a bit worrying that all of these guys are much better offensively than Morin is advertised to be. But I don't see a ton of evidence that it "takes big guys longer." I think that's a canard that's thrown around enough that people just believe it even though there isn't a ton of evidence (basically, the 2 major cases are Wiercioch and Franson and I'd venture a guess that Franson was held back because of defensive deficiencies which really shouldn't be an issue for Morin at this point).
Re: Sanheim, CSC, following your rationale, Ghost should have been sent to the AHL last year to work on his defensive game. I don't think we're going to look back at Sanheim and say "he could have been great, too bad we didn't have the bandwidth in NHL coaching to coach him." If it's that bad, hire a "defensive consultant" or something, what's Hatcher doing?
jester wrote: I think you just gotta take Morin and put him to the side. Guys his size often seem to take a bit longer to develop. Also, as noted, I'm not convinced that analysis asks all the right questions. For starters, did getting to the NHL too early delay development in some guys?
For as much as people like to talk about Patrick and his injuries, Morin hasn't had much better luck over the years. This year would have been his best stretch, but even this ended with him having surgery on both of his wrists. Maybe he isn't much better than Luke Schenn, but you cannot deny that his development has been dragged out a bit longer than some might care for. At the same time, he's made progress every single year since he's been drafted.
The most critical thing, I think, is that our prospects have confidence in themselves; which most of them do.
FlyHigh wrote: Re: Morin, let's look at guys in the NHL around his height that are established and how much lower-league experience they got before going to the NHL after they were drafted.
Zadorov and Nurse aren't exactly killing it, and they were brought on much quicker than Morin. Is there a correlation to be made there?
Nurse did OK last year and spent ~530 of his 670 minutes with Gryba/Benning (Gryba is on his way out of the league, Benning a rookie).
Zadorov spent 1 more year in junior and went to a team after in the middle of a gigantic tank job and then got traded to the worst team in the league for the last 10 years.
I don't think either situation is particularly comparable tbh. The idea of bringing up Morin/Hagg last year was that you could have put him with a partner with some NHL experience (Gudas, MDZ, just shelter them Ghost, even AMac since they like him) and give him minutes in a low-pressure situation.
So, we are aware Chara, for example, was garbage when he entered the league and did not have his first decent season until he was 24, right? Didn't cross the 30 point threshold until he was 25. Myers has yet to come close to replicating his rookie year ... How can we not say Burns took a while?
FlyHigh wrote: Nurse did OK last year and spent ~530 of his 670 minutes with Gryba/Benning (Gryba is on his way out of the league, Benning a rookie).
If neither situation is comparable, then how is Chara's? Or Hamilton or Myers, who were both considered strong offensively coming out of juniors? I don't mean to be a dick, but statistics and hockey don't always mix. Particularly, if you're using them to predict what a twenty something-year old defenseman is going to do in the foreseeable future.
They're fun to play around with, but at the end of the day you just have to wait and see because these kids, and the general managers that draft them, are just that fucking unpredictable (ref: St. Louis, Chicago, Nashville, Boston and Los Angeles for anecdotal evidence.)
Chara -- You're basically saying that he was garbage on Isles teams that were bottom-3 in the league his entire time there and then magically got much better when he turned 24....and happened to go to a really good team in Ottawa? I think it's just as likely that he was in a horrible situation where everybody sucked and then got put into a situation where everybody was good and the numbers started to move accordingly.
Yeah, if you throw rookie d-men with no experience into a complete tire fire, the odds that they'll succeed are pretty low. The Flyers are not a complete tire-fire.
Burns -- If you want to draw a Burns/Morin comparison, feel free. I put Burns on the list because they're both tall dudes, but let's not pretend their playing styles have any kind of resemblance. Burns was also an impact D on those Wild teams early in his career before moving to forward, partially out of necessity and partially because this was before Karlsson/Byfuglien and coaches realized that rovers could be good.
Myers -- Goes against your argument. Your arg = "big guys take a while." Can't turn around and argue "Myers had his best season as a rookie."
FlyHigh, do you remember Chara as a rookie? He was awful ... just a huge dude with lots of raw tools. He definitely would have benefited from time in the AHL early on. And a skating coach.
No, Myers doesn't really neuter the point. Sure, he had a good rookie season and then regressed. That shit happens ... also is not exactly a ringing endorsement of putting guys out there.
For the record, we should be clear on expectations, too. Sanheim, Myers, and Hagg are a bit different than Morin. Morin's ideal (likely) outcome is a 2nd pairing defensive minute eater and physical force, and PK workhorse. If he's good enough to do that in a first pairing role, he's a grand slam. He's probably never going g to put up big offensive numbers, but he can make up for that elsewhere.
"Big guys that are successful NHL d-men take a lot of time to develop." One of your key pieces of evidence for this is that Tyler Myers regressed. That doesn't support your argument. You don't have access to an alternate universe where Myers would have become a Norris contender if only he had been developed slowly. I spent 5 mins looking at Tyler Myers' rookie season. He had an unsustainably high shooting percentage for a D (10.6%), 23 of his 48 points were away from 5v5, and his possession numbers were negative in relation to his teammates.
We literally just saw this with Gostisbehere. Dude comes in and puts up really big counting stats due in part to unsustainable percentages and people lose their minds. Interesting that Myers' perceived slide and regression happens to have come over the same time period where his team went from a division winner to a cellar dweller (but I'm sure that's all his fault somehow).
Re: Chara, if you can honestly look us in the internet eye and say that you saw more than 10 games of Chara as a rookie on a godawful Islanders team, I'll tip my cap and that you closely followed as he went from an abomination to a top pairing guy in the 12 months between leaving NY and Ottawa, then feel free to add him to the list....that makes 3 guys.
Also re: Morin on your 2nd point, I'm hoping for a steady No.5. I have trouble thinking of a top-4 purely defensive minutes eater on a contending team this side of Djalmarsson.
FlyHigh, I was a hockey obsessed high schooler when Chara was an Islander. Yeah, I remember him. I also know you are a bit younger than me, but it cannot be stressed enough that Chara was basically treated like a circus novelty act when he showed up. Everyone paid attention to him. He was garbage.
Fine, FlyHigh, awkward gangly people that go through ridiculous growth spurts in puberty definitely develop fine tune motor skills on the sane timeline as normal folks. Watching Ivy League basketball centers definitely confirms this.
I mean, shit, one of the reasons Sanheim pops when you watch him is entirely because guys that tall rarely skate as smoothly as he does.
FlyHigh wrote: Also re: Morin on your 2nd point, I'm hoping for a steady No.5. I have trouble thinking of a top-4 purely defensive minutes eater on a contending team this side of Djalmarsson.
How many 6'6" guys are there in the league that can skate as well as he does, and relish the physical game. There aren't a lot of guys to compare him to. And, shit, if Hal Gill can be effective post-lockout ...
jester wrote: For the record, we should be clear on expectations, too. Sanheim, Myers, and Hagg are a bit different than Morin. Morin's ideal (likely) outcome is a 2nd pairing defensive minute eater and physical force, and PK workhorse. If he's good enough to do that in a first pairing role, he's a grand slam. He's probably never going g to put up big offensive numbers, but he can make up for that elsewhere.
A realistic ceiling for Morin is probably 16 minutes a night of ESTOI, 3-4 minutes a night SH, 0 minutes with the man advantage, between 10 and 20 points a season, and HOPEFULLY 100 SOGF per season. If he can accomplish all that without putting his linemates at a disadvantage, we're golden.
Right ... and the reality of a player with limitations like that (offense) is that they need to be good enough in other areas to justify their spot. I think there's a lot of reason (at this stage) to be pretty optimistic that Morin can do the things he needs to to do carve out his niche. Whether he does or not is another matter, but there is a spot for guys that can fill those roles in the way that his tools suggest he can. With his reach and skating ability, he's going to be able to cover a lot of territory, and he pairs that with a wonderful-to-see edge to his game.
We'll find out next year. I think the real wild card in all of this is Hagg, who does not sound all that impressive ... but a lot of coaches seem to like him, and the opinion seems to be that his game will work better in the NHL than AHL (color me skeptical).
jester wrote: FlyHigh, I was a hockey obsessed high schooler when Chara was an Islander. Yeah, I remember him. I also know you are a bit younger than me, but it cannot be stressed enough that Chara was basically treated like a circus novelty act when he showed up. Everyone paid attention to him. He was garbage.
Chara played 84 games his first 2 years (on godawful Isles teams), played big minutes his next 2 years (on Isles teams that were even more godawful) and had ugly counting stats, then promptly was the No.2 d-man and +30 on a team that went to Game 7 of the 2nd round. I'd be willing to bet that Year 3 and 4 Chara were fairly similar to Year 5 Chara, but that his situation changed dramatically. Kenny Jonsson (universally remembered as a pretty solid d-man, top-4 type), had pretty bad numbers on those teams...
Your 2nd point is all well and good, but one of Morin's skills from his draft until now is supposedly that he skates very well for a big man, it's not like he's Bambi (or Chara) out there. Also not sure how comparable Ivy League centers (i.e. random rich, white tall guys) are to professional athletes
Your next point about "not many true comparables" is well-taken. It's basically a question of A) do these guys not exist on contending teams because they are rare or B) have teams made the calculation that other guys would be better-suited for their spots. It really seems like his best comparison might be Braydon Coburn. I'd be very curious to see how 2008-2012 Coburn would fare in today's NHL. It's at least interesting that he's been a 3rd pairing guy ever since he went to Tampa despite still being relatively young (turned 32 in Feb). The Lightning also aren't especially deep in D right now (Hedman, Stralman, then meh).
Also curious how much Morin's and Gudas' skillsets overlap, Gudas is a really good player in his own right, but I don't think you'd want them on the same pairing or even in the same top-4.
In any case, going back to the original point, I'm pretty skeptical on how much he benefited from a 2nd year in the AHL and I have the same skepticism for another year of Sandheim in the AHL.
You are walking around the point with Chara, FlyHigh. He improved considerably, for sure. But in his first couple of years he had no business being in the NHL, and he wasn't very good after that. Ottawa took a flyer on him as part of the Yashin trade, and he blossomed. It's not unheard of for it to click for players. Mike Richards did it here, for example.
Honestly, FlyHigh, the downsides of relatively extreme height in athletes is pretty uncontroversial. They have to adjust to a far more significant change in balance (and in a physical sport have a higher center of gravity), and need to learn to maneuver a longer wing span. You can look outside the Ivy's if you want, how many awkward as fuck dudes play D1 basketball entirely because they are 6'8" plus and how much do they improve between 18 and 22?
If Coburn consistently embraced the physical game the way Morin seems to, he'd be a stud. He's never done that, unfortunately.
jester wrote: You are walking around the point with Chara, FlyHigh. He improved considerably, for sure. But in his first couple of years he had no business being in the NHL, and he wasn't very good after that. Ottawa took a flyer on him as part of the Yashin trade, and he blossomed. It's not unheard of for it to click for players. Mike Richards did it here, for example.
I personally don't even think Chara supports your point particularly well (the NHL in 1997 bears very little resemblance to the NHL in 2017, god-awful Isles team, strong possibility that he was a pretty similar player in Year 3 after 84 NHL games to what he was in Year 5).
Even giving you Chara, where is other evidence to support your point besides, "well, tall guys are uncoordinated." If anyone is dancing around the point here, I don't think it's me.
So, in your list you have 4 guys that were the same age as Morin during what will be his presumed rookie year, two HIGHLY regarded prospects, one highly regarded prospects that likely got mismanaged and took until 22 to put it together (Coburn), a rookie, two studs one of whom was total garbage early in his career (Chara and Burns), and a guy with a stellar rookie year followed by some struggles ... and in Chara's case it wasn't until he was 24/25 that he became an impact player.
Why don't we pump the breaks a bit on evaluating Morin? He will be 22 next year, which is pretty clearly not an outlier. He's almost certainly not going to be a Norris guy, but he never was expected to be one.
patience is something we are going to have to deal with, with all these kids they will be bringing up. bigger defenseman as a rule take a bit longer to reach whatever ceiling they have.
I would think these kids are probably going to be given easy/sheltered minutes as much as possible for a little while.
That's a much more compelling argument, using age rather than pro experience as your development measure. I had assumed that you meant "pro development time" when you said "big guys take longer", but if you go by age, it's much more convincing.
In Morin's case tbh, I remain somewhat skeptical that he (or these other guys) developed fine motor skills between the ages of 21 and 22 have made (or will make) them more effective NHL players or that playing in the NHL, rather than the AHL, would hamper the development of these skills, but there's not much out there to support that contention.
I also enjoy the "Coburn put it all together at 22" example which is really just "Coburn started playing with Kimmo Timonen."
jester wrote: Why don't we pump the breaks a bit on evaluating Morin? He will be 22 next year, which is pretty clearly not an outlier. He's almost certainly not going to be a Norris guy, but he never was expected to be one.
jester wrote: Morin's ideal (likely) outcome is a 2nd pairing defensive minute eater and physical force, and PK workhorse. If he's good enough to do that in a first pairing role, he's a grand slam. He's probably never going g to put up big offensive numbers, but he can make up for that elsewhere.
In any case, the argument here isn't what Morin is or isn't or will be or won't be; speculation is fun but nobody can definitively say.
My original point was basically a continuation of my ongoing theory that the Flyers under Hextall move a lot of their young guys too slowly. The Dellow post by and large supports that contention. The obvious counters here are Provorov and Konecny, but outside of that, it appears that the Flyers have a de facto "at least 2 AHL years" policy for most of their young players. I remember when Detroit was lauded up and down for having a similar policy, but if anything, I think the slow-development method of managing their prospects delayed their realization that they desperately needed more talent. Obviously you don't want to throw guys into the fire when they're completely unprepared (for example, everyone agrees that Myers should probably get at least some AHL time), but at some point they need to sink or swim.
it is a fine line between developing guys and maybe bordering on keeping guys in the AHL too long and sticking them in the NHL when they are just not ready. Which is why I would not be shocked if Hagg makes the team ahead of the prospects with higher upside.
FlyHigh wrote: That's a much more compelling argument, using age rather than pro experience as your development measure. I had assumed that you meant "pro development time" when you said "big guys take longer", but if you go by age, it's much more convincing.
I don't know, FlyHigh ... "take longer" seems to be a pretty clear temporal statement. Moreover, there are rules in place regarding "pro development time" for a player like Morin and other CHL guys, and most of the NCAA guys get signed out by teams when they feel they're ready.
Okay ... but here's the other end of that consideration: maybe playing in the AHL versus the NHL is a big nothingburger in development arc? Maybe it doesn't make a huge difference either way? Maybe top flight players make the NHL earlier because they get identified and there's pressure to bring them up the NHL (Flyers, for example, were absolutely under pressure to bring up Ghost).
My God, FlyHigh, do any players carry their own water? Did Coburn not look like garbage for stretches WHILE playing with Timonen? He remained an inconsistent player throughout his entire tenure as a Flyer.
... I think you need to parse those statements a little more closely if you think there is any contradiction at play there. Honestly, I'm not really sure what point you're trying to make here.
... whether or not the Flyers are handling their prospects properly is ENTIRELY speculative in nature at this point with the Hextall regime!
... and that's probably not necessarily by age 21, or even 22 ... and it's a particularly dubious hot take with these taller guys.
And, even with the Flyers, you have Konecny and Provorov at 19 and 20 last year. The previous year you had Ghost, Laughton, and Cousins all seeing time at 22, 21, and 22. I mean, how many young players do you want the Flyers to be bringing up? This year we will very likely see Morin, Hagg, and Sanheim (at some point) get non-trivial if not significant NHL minutes at 22, 22, and 21. Perhaps Myers will get some games in, too. That's without getting into an 18 y/o in Patrick making the team, and the team sure seems to be acting like Lindblom is going to get time.
Moreover, I'm not sure these guys have pushed the Flyers necessarily. Sanheim took half of the AHL year last year before he got his feet under him. Hagg has taken a bit, and Morin was known to be a bit of a project. Does that mean they won't be as good as we might hope ... I'm dubious of that claim, mostly because I don't think the AHL is a bad development spot, and I'm not sure you should be judging struggling NHL players under the age of 22 all that harshly (particularly D).
GoneFullHextall wrote: it is a fine line between developing guys and maybe bordering on keeping guys in the AHL too long and sticking them in the NHL when they are just not ready. Which is why I would not be shocked if Hagg makes the team ahead of the prospects with higher upside.
Right, and I think it also depends what skills you are trying to develop. If you take a guy that you want to contribute offensively and plop him in a 4th line / 3rd pairing role where he doesn't get to play with offensive guys or see the PP, is he really benefiting from that as much as getting 20 minutes a night in the AHL as a 1st liner / top pairing guy with significant PP time?
Honestly, I think a case can be made that Couturier's offense might have been stunted a bit by his role with the Flyers, because he certainly has individual skill that he flashes.
I think Morin and Hagg have been handled well up to now. This year will be an important year for them to take a big step forward. I think realistically Sanheim and Myers will be higher impact players than Morin and Hagg, but I agree that Morin and Hagg are more ready for the NHL right now than the other two. Myers being right handed will actually be a huge factor moving forward and will make our d pairings easy to sort out. If they all develop on track I could see this:
Morin-Ghost (Ghost is left handed but plays a lot of time on the right for offensive opportunities. Ideally Morin and Ghost are great foils of each other. Run and Gun with Stay at Home.
Sanheim-Myers (Two big versatile d men that can play two way games. IIf Myers develops more than I expect, he can take Gudas' spot)
Hagg (wildcard, still find Hagg hard to judge, he definitely has some high level skills but has never produced much. He is the one who actually reminds me of Hjalmarsson with his style and build. Great outlet pass, speed and heads up two way play without much offense.)
I think Couturier's offense was definitely stunted by coming into the league at 18 in the role he did. He clearly focused his development on puck protection/possession and defensive responsibility. His shooting still needs work even at 24 so it probably won't get any better at this point. Him and Schenn were dynamos together on the phantoms during the lockout when I saw them.
1) Flyers only brought up Ghost because of Streit's pubic plate detachment (which, incidentally...yikes). Obviously once he was up it was impossible to send him back down, but that wasn't a voluntary decision. If Ghost had played 20 games over 6 weeks and had 1 goal, 4 assists, and was -4, there's at least a decent chance he would have gone back down (again, speculative!). I'm also not sure if Laughton is a good example considering he just spent a year in the AHL while numerous mediocre veterans played significant NHL time.
2) Of course my theory re: Flyers prospects is speculative! We don't have access to the multiverse unfortunately (wouldn't mind access a universe where Hillary won tbh). That being said, there is an increasing amount of evidence to suggest that peak ages for forwards and d-men occur a lot earlier than we previously thought. It's good to be cognizant of that and to view prospect development accordingly.
3) "We need to pump the breaks evaluating Morin"...*evaluates Morin*...obviously no big deal, but c'mon...
4) We arrive back at the original Dellow point on AHL time. Sanheim, Morin & co. aren't necessarily hurt by spending unnecessary time in the AHL. However, it delays the organization's ability to make concrete plans for the future. Ultimately, it's important to know whether a lot of these prospects are actually NHL players (as well as what level of player) and it's important to know that as quickly as reasonably possible. Heck, I've been a Weal booster for quite a while and it's a low-risk deal, but would feel much better about penciling him into a top-6 role if we'd seen 120 NHL games out of him rather than 27.
FWIW Cote flat-out said that Weal was held back because of organizational politics. Obviously that's one guy's perspective (and a guy that didn't have his contract renewed), but still relevant in this context. Not suggesting it's necessarily a conscious calculation, but it's very easy to stash guys who might be ready in the AHL and just say that they're "developing" because nobody will criticize you for it.
Also really important to note that Hextall has absolutely done all of the big stuff right and put the organizational in a much better position than it was when he tookover. Easy to carp about this stuff and some of the smaller deals, but overall it's overwhelmingly positive and this most definitely qualifies as nitpicking, but it's mid-July and had a slow day yesterday...
FH, is your argument that the Flyers should have pushed these guys to the NHL faster, or is it that the fact that they haven't hit the NHL yet means they likely won't turn into top 4 d-men? It seems to be the former, but this time last year, Hagg was, by all accounts, coming off a dreadful AHL season. Did you want him to get promoted after that?
CantSeeColors wrote: FH, is your argument that the Flyers should have pushed these guys to the NHL faster, or is it that the fact that they haven't hit the NHL yet means they likely won't turn into top 4 d-men? It seems to be the former, but this time last year, Hagg was, by all accounts, coming off a dreadful AHL season. Did you want him to get promoted after that?
Re: Hagg, Chris Pryor told Craig Custance in mid-January that Hagg was 'just about NHL-ready.' Considering a) the incoming logjam of prospects and b) the Flyers' mediocrity, if they thought Hagg was NHL ready, I cannot think why they wouldn't stick him in the NHL for the back half of last season to see how he looked. You can't draw a conclusion on a guy after 40 games, but it'd at least be an indication.
At the outset, I said we should break camp with Hagg/Morin/Sanheim this year. But thinking about that, it's a real big ask for 3 guys with zero NHL experience to come in and start playing at the same time. If Hagg had played 40 games and looked decent, maybe you feel a little better about giving him some responsibility. But instead, they might be almost obligated to put Sanheim in the AHL for another season, regardless of whether he's ready, because they don't want to start a rookie on a pairing that's going up against top-line scorers on other teams. If you put those 3 in the league all at once, you can't come up with a top-6 that doesn't have either a) 2 complete rookies on the same pairing or b) complete rookie on top pair.
Personally, I would have chucked both Hagg and Morin into the NHL once it became clear that the Flyers were a bubble team at absolute best (and Laughton/Leier if there was space), but I'm sure reasonable minds can disagree there.