This is the year for the Flames to prove they can graduate prospects from the AHL

[Five-hole]

Fair warning: this is an opinion thread.

I don't mean to rain on what has been a pretty successful offseason for the Flames so far. We have a stopgap solution for goaltending for the next two years. The addition of Hamonic steadies the top four for the next few seasons. The Stone signing adds stability to the bottom pair for the next three years.

BUT.

I have had a concern for a long time that the Flames are mediocre at best, and likely pretty terrible in fact, at graduating prospects from the AHL.

Consider that the last prospect to graduate to the Flames NHL team and who is still on the Flames NHL team after spending some time on the farm was Micheal Ferland, drafted in 2010. Spent parts of three seasons in the AHL (one of which resulted in being sent back down to junior), and appears to have become a full-time NHLer.

Prior to that?

TJ Brodie, drafted in 2008. Spent parts of 3 seasons in the AHL.
Mikael Backlund, drafted in 2007. Spent 1 season in the AHL, plus a one-game demotion in 2010-11.

Other notables:

Lance Bouma, drafted in 2008. Spent parts of 4 seasons with the Heat. Recently bought out.

Markus Granlund, drafted in 2011. Spent parts of 3 seasons with the Heat, was traded to the Canucks due to a "logjam" at centre for a winger who is struggling to make the jump. Last season's stat line:
69 GP, 19 G, 13 A, 32 P, 14 PIM, -19 +/-, $800k salary

Sven Baertschi, also drafted in 2011. Spent parts of 3 seasons with the AHL club, demanded a trade and was dealt to the Canucks, because he didn't feel he had a chance here. Last season's stat line:
68 GP, 18 G, 17 A, 35 P, 8 PIM, -6 +/-, $1.85M salary

Conversely consider these statlines:
Michael Frolik: 82 GP, 17 G, 27 A, 44 P, 58 PIM, +13 +/- $4.3M salary
Troy Brouwer: 74 GP, 13 G, 12 A, 25 P, 31 PIM, -11 +/-, $4.5M salary
Matt Stajan: 81 GP, 6 G, 17 A, 23 P, 40 PIM, +3 +/-, $3.125M salary

Don't get me wrong, I love what Frolik brings. He was 1/3rd of one of the best lines in hockey for a reason. But another 1/3rd of that line was a true homegrown player, Mikael Backlund, who we have had on the cheap for a number of years because we didn't have to sign him out of free agency.

This year we have a number of prospects on the AHL team who are knocking on the door:

At F:
Mark Jankowski
Hunter Shinkaruk
Morgan Klimchuk
Emile Poirier
Spencer Foo
Curtis Lazar

On D:
Rasmus Andersson
Tyler Wotherspoon
Brett Kulak

On D, barring injury, we have one spot. Two, if you carry 8 D. One of my wish list items for this season is that some combination of those three guys gets 82 games or more. It doesn't have to be one guy, but if Matt Bartkowski is taking a regular shift as a #6 I'm going to be very disappointed. If Treliving signs another stopgap vet to play bottom-pairing minutes I'm going to be very, very disappointed.

I was very happy that Treliving did not (or at least not yet) sign any more aging stopgaps up front. We have a plethora of young talent that, once developed, could fit in top 9 roles and very few spots for them.

Gaudreau - Monahan - Ferland
Tkachuk - Backlund - Frolik
Versteeg - Bennett - Brouwer
? - Stajan - ?

It's highly unlikely that any of those players, barring injury, don't play in the top 9 to start the season. That's two spots, assuming (hoping) schlubs like Gazdic aren't playing on the big club, and it's two spots on the 4th line, which has a very specific function and may not be well-suited to grooming top-9 offensive prospects.

What's the big deal, you say? If a prospect deserves a spot he will earn it, right?

Well, maybe not. I imagine it was likely rather disappointing for Rasmus, Spoon, and Kulak to see that two top-5 D were added for the next 3 years. The prevailing wisdom is you can't overripen a prospect, but you can if you literally never pick it off the vine. There's a difference between "gifting" a spot to a prospect who is not ready, and sending the message to your entire prospect base that you will never have a realistic shot at getting time on the big club. Why do you think Hickey didn't want to sign here?

Over the past ... well, decade or more, dating back to GM Sutter, we have routinely brought in aging and expensive vets to fill holes and perform at a mediocre level. Sure, in theory, Troy Brouwer brings a different game than Sven Baertschi, but I didn't see it last year. Sven has a lot more offensive upside, costs about 1/3rd as much, is younger, and is still developing. There is a very real risk that Brouwer will not only not bounce back but will regress over the course of his contract.

Michael Stone is a reliable #5 guy, but he too costs about 3x as much as a Kulak, a Wotherspoon, or an Andersson. Couldn't Wotherspoon be a Michael Stone if given regular minutes over the next 3 years? And save us $2.5M in cap in the process, allowing us to address other needs, like the upcoming contracts for core players like Bennett, Tkachuk, Backlund, and Brodie?

Bottom line, you can't keep rotating in expensive vets and letting your kids rot on the vine. The crop of young prospects that, to me, represents the big turnaround in the Flames drafting and development are starting to be ready. Let's show Flames prospects that if you put your time in, you will get time and some leeway to learn on the big club.

I worry that signings like Stone and Brouwer show that Treliving is trying to sprint before we can run, and to run, we need cheap, homegrown talent.

Finally, you will rarely if ever hit a homerun by acquiring a developed player. Oliver Kylington could be Erik Karlsson. Highly, highly unlikely, but it's more likely that OK will be than Michael Stone or Travis Hamonic will be Erik Karlsson. Rasmus could easily be as good a D as Hamonic, maybe better. Is it likely? No. But for any of these players to hit a homerun, they need to be given some at-bats.

Furthermore, developing prospects is the only way to make your organization more asset-rich. Too many NHL-ready prospects? Trade one for futures. A prospect makes a vet expendable? Trade the vet for futures. Conversely, buying guys like Hamonic who will be a UFA at the end of his deal with three high draft picks gradually erodes your asset base. Not now, but we have traded three prospects who could make an impact in 2022-2025 for three years of a defenseman now. You better be damn sure that you get this window timing right, because this kind of asset management will force another bottom-out rebuild in 6-8 years unless we can continually replenish our roster with homegrown talent.

Can we? It remains to be seen. I'm hoping to see big strides in that department this season.

[Gaudreau]

Well thought out and reasonable opinion to have. Totally agree that we need to start graduating some of these kids, although I will say that at the end of the day it is up to these kids to really prove that they belong. Let's hope they aren't discouraged by the track record of vets being signed and instead motivated to out perform them if anything.

[robertsfanatic]

Originally Posted by Five-hole

A prospect makes a vet expendable? Trade the vet for futures.

I appreciate the effort put into this post.

I agree with the premise but the quoted section is the part that we need to remember, if a prospect is ready for full time duty then they can trade a vet for picks. But if the prospects are not ready then you have a capable player, hopefully, helping the Flames win games and eventually a cup.

As for over-ripening, look at Detroit who would let their prospects develop in the league that is there for that very reason (AHL) before bringing them up. But it sometimes takes a few seasons before they're fully ready.

[Cali Panthers Fan]

I appreciate your position, and I don't think you're entirely off-base here, but there are a few things I wanted to mention:

1) Regarding Hickey, there's no direct indication that he wasn't going to sign, but rather some speculation based on the situation that occurred this summer with him deciding to return for his senior year after Treliving mentioned his signing was "imminent". However, even if you ARE correct, it probably has more to do with the depth of prospects in the Flames organization. Even before drafting Valimaki I had Hickey slotted 4th in the organization after Andersson, Kylington, and Fox. I'm sure he figured that depth would limit his opportunity more than anything else the Flames do in terms of development or opportunity to play.

2) I honestly don't worry about Baertschi and Granlund. They are getting a much bigger opportunity to play on a woeful Canucks team than any other team would give them, and their numbers are likely inflated because of that. Granlund isn't bad at other aspects of the game, but Baertschi is barely passable defensively and will still wilt at the first sign of contact. I don't miss them and neither should you.

3) With regards to the defense prospects, this was the first year the Flames drafted a defenseman in the 1st round since Tom Erixon. It's no coincidence that we haven't had a defenseman fast-track his way to the NHL in that time. I'm of the opinion that defensemen are NHL ready around the age of 22, needing at least 2 seasons of pro play before they can make the jump. The exceptions are high end prospects that are usually drafted in the top 15 of the first round (think Ekblad or Seth Jones).

The further you go down in the draft, the more holes in the game that the player needs to fill. 2nd round picks like Andersson and Kylington are likely not ready until 21 at the earliest. 4th round picks like Kulak are long shots to ever play in the NHL, so the fact he hasn't nailed down a spot yet isn't surprising. He's close, and this is probably his year, but he's had to make a lot of progress over the years to even get to this point, and he'll have to keep improving to stay in the NHL.

Lastly, I think Wotherspoon himself stalled at being an AHL/NHL tweener, and that isn't necessarily on the organization.

4) Players like Jankowski were always going to be developing at a slow burn, so the fact that he's ready after 4 years of college and a season of pro puts him pretty much on track. If he doesn't nail down a spot full time this year, I wouldn't be worried, but he should get 10-20 games to see how close he is. The team should find a way to get him into the lineup at some point if possible.

5) It's the GM's job to make the team as competitive as possible EVERY SINGLE YEAR. That's what Treliving did this year as the window is opening up for this franchise. If a prospect forces a veteran out of the lineup with their play, Treliving will move them along in a trade, but you don't play kids at the detriment of your lineup. I would be concerned about our bottom pairing if we had two rookies like Kulak and Andersson to start the year, or if you had Bartkowski playing with a rookie. Even if you sheltered them, it would be an adventure every night.

That being said, there ARE spots up for grabs (Bouma's buyout says hello...and I think that was to ensure Lazar had a spot on the team), but it's good to have the competition in camp being middling NHLers like Matt Stajan and Matt Bartkowski. They have established that they can handle low levels of competition, but their level of play isn't that much higher than players coming from the AHL. The GM should set the bar somewhere for comparison of prospects to veterans to know whether the prospect is ready or not.

Now I WILL agree that the Flames have not done a great job of developing their prospects over the years. We see that when we trade some of these prospects to other franchises and they fall off the map overnight. Part of that is the draft selection itself, but to see so many promising players fail to progress once they turn pro bothers me as well. Sometimes it's due to injury troubles (Klimchuk, Seiloff) and other times it's due to personal issues (Poirier, D. Ryder) and some are just dinks that the franchise was glad to be rid of due to poor character (Erixon, Howse).

Some teams are better than others at developing talent in house, but I don't see the Flames as being THAT much worse than other teams. At least we're still better at it than Edmonton.

[Five-hole]

Originally Posted by Cali Panthers Fan

5) It's the GM's job to make the team as competitive as possible EVERY SINGLE YEAR. That's what Treliving did this year as the window is opening up for this franchise. If a prospect forces a veteran out of the lineup with their play, Treliving will move them along in a trade, but you don't play kids at the detriment of your lineup. I would be concerned about our bottom pairing if we had two rookies like Kulak and Andersson to start the year, or if you had Bartkowski playing with a rookie. Even if you sheltered them, it would be an adventure every night.

Lots in your post, thanks for the thoughtful response, but I wanted to address this first.

Is it? I think the GM's job is to ensure the team is taking whatever strides are necessary to be a cup-contending team more often than not. No team can contend for the cup year in, year out. Detroit made the playoffs for 25 straight years, and a good portion of that pre-dated the salary cap and isn't really relevant to the current discussion, but they haven't been a cup contender since they last won it in '08 and re-appeared in the finals the year after.

You don't always ice the best possible team this year, because sports teams evolve over time. VGK is a great example right now. Should GMGM be icing the best possible team this year? Or should he be trying to ice the best possible team in 4 years time? Or 7 years time? I can tell you that icing the best possible team now means the best possible teams 4 or 7 years down the line are significantly worse. Further, the best possible team now is significantly worse than the best possible team in 4 years, or 7 years, because you lose out on the possibility to pick up some elite or even generational talent in the draft.

In my opinion, categorically preferring veterans who are better hockey players right now to rookies who may be worse now but may be better in the future:

1) Stunts the growth of all the organization's prospects, as hope is an essential part of any human being's career;

2) Stunts the maximum upside of a team's competitiveness by preferring known commodities to riskier prospects who could become very good or even elite players;

3) Stunts the maximum upside of a team's competitiveness because the roster is occupied by vets (especially UFA-signed vets) making more than young players who can fulfill a similar function;

4) Strips assets from your organization as you trade futures for short-term fixes;

5) Plugs one of the only true asset value pipelines into the organization, as you will never have rookies making vets expendable to be traded for assets, and you diminish your overall prospect value, thereby diminishing the value they can recoup in trade if you have too many.

All of this, in exchange for:

1) More reliable competitiveness from established vets on a short-term basis.

Great teams need a mix of both, but usually the injection of reliable vets comes after establishing an excellent asset core of homegrown assets. There is still time to do that, but the time is now. Our asset base pre-Feaster was atrocious, and it's taken this long to build a stable of prospects who have a legitimate shot at playing in the NHL. It's now time to reap the rewards of that process, not to continue plugging holes to be competitive.

[Cali Panthers Fan]

@ five-hole

I honestly believe that it depends on the phase of team building you are in. Even if you are recognizing that you need to trade away aging veterans and do a rebuild, you still try and get players that can contribute positively to your team in the short-term. You have to maintain some sort of competitive edge or you risk becoming one of those teams that forgets how to win and remains stuck in a perpetual rebuild. That's when franchises start losing lots of money. The Flames were lucky enough to make the playoffs 2 out of 4/5 rebuidling years to maintain fan interest, and that was largely because we had a few players that we overpaid to keep us competitive. Later we traded those players away for returning assets. In rare cases like Wideman and Raymond, they played themselves off the roster before we had a chance to trade them.

I personally believe that Vegas is doing a terrible job of franchise building, but I guess I'm in the minority on that one. You have to give paying fans a reason to show up, even if that means you're an untalented, but plucky team with some key veterans to stem the tide until the rookies are ready for a more prominent role. I don't subscribe to the idea of tanking for picks because as we saw with Buffalo in McDavid's draft year, they tanked harder than anyone for him and ended up with Eichel instead. Not a bad consolation prize, but they're further behind in their team build because they missed on him and had poor depth in the organization due to tanking.

I also don't subscribe to the idea that the only way to build a cup winning team is to have 2 or 3 exceptional players, and build around them with a bunch of lesser/cheaper players. Just because it's the way team's used to be built to win doesn't mean it will always be that way in the future. In fact, I would argue that the Kings don't have an elite player on their cup winning rosters (Doughty is arguable, as is Kopitar, but that's it).

It's a difference of opinion, but I'll be happy to eat crow if I'm wrong.

[Itse]

I think the OP raises questions worth asking, and others have already made longer comments worth reading, so I'll just make a few quick notes here.

FORWARDS:
- Only forward we added this season is Versteeg, and that's such a sweetheart deal, you don't say 'no' to it just because you might have a prospect ready. It's also just 1 year.
- We didn't re-sign Chiasson, although I'm sure he could have been had for a reasonable price, and we bought out Bouma. All the other guys are must-signs or guys already under contracts. That's as many spots left on the roster as we can currently have.
- When Brouwer was signed we clearly needed someone on the RW. Same goes for Frolik. You usually have to give free agents some term to get them.
- We didn't lose Granlund, we traded him for another prospect.
- Baertchi kind of sucks, plus we wanted to get bigger anyway. Baertchi wasn't the player we needed.

GOAL:
- In goal, we have 1 guy inked for 2 years and the other for 1 year, so there's no one blocking our prospects on that front.

DEFENSE:
- Here I think there's a valid question of where are the opportunities supposed to come from. There's just 1 spot open for the next 3 years. Unless our defensive prospects are going to be a major disappointment, or we'll see a trade or a serious injury, there's a logjam coming before the end of those years.

SPOTS:
- Brouwer ended the season on the 4th line, and can be pushed down there again. Same could happen to someone else.
- It's far from obvious that the 1st line RW spot is taken.
- It wouldn't surprise me if Backlund-Frolik once again got a prospect on their line.
- There's always injuries.
- Stajans spot on the roster is far from guaranteed.

In other words, the lines are very far from set.

[Cali Panthers Fan]

Originally Posted by Itse

I think the OP raises questions worth asking, and others have already made longer comments worth reading, so I'll just make a few quick notes here.

FORWARDS:
- Only forward we added this season is Versteeg, and that's such a sweetheart deal, you don't say 'no' to it just because you might have a prospect ready. It's also just 1 year.
- We didn't re-sign Chiasson, although I'm sure he could have been had for a reasonable price, and we bought out Bouma. That's clearly spots open on the roster.
- When Brouwer was signed we clearly needed someone on the RW. Same goes for Frolik. You usually have to give free agents some term to get them.

GOAL:
- In goal, we have 1 guy inked for 2 years and the other for 1 year, so there's no one blocking our prospects on that front.

DEFENSE:
- Here I think there's a valid question of where are the opportunities supposed to come from. There's just 1 spot open for the next 3 years. Unless our defensive prospects are going to be a major disappointment, or we'll see a trade or a serious injury, there's a logjam coming before the end of those years.

Not necessarily, since defensemen usually need a longer development window than forwards. Our defense prospects will be the following ages in 3 years:

Kulak: 26 (likely to make the team this year)

Andersson: 23
Kylington: 23
Fox: 22
Valimaki: 21

Those are the ages where you let those guys play full time if they're ready. If they're ready sooner, you trade one of those veterans currently on a great deal (Hamonic, Brodie, even Stone).

[Browndog71]

Very nice to see a great discussion on a valid concern, regardless of what side of the fence you are on.

Love the fact that the people discussing this currently are doing it in a thoughtful and respectful way and not dropping to the standards of some other sites (yet....).

[EldrickOnIce]

Lack of opportunity on the back end is concerning, except that (as stated) our best prospects are 20 and under.
Cooking the D is good. Injuries will happen that will allow opportunity.

[Itse]

Originally Posted by Cali Panthers Fan

If they're ready sooner, you trade one of those veterans currently on a great deal (Hamonic, Brodie, even Stone).

True, but you can't trade a veteran unless you KNOW a prospect is ready. How do you know your prospects are ready? By playing them in the NHL. See the problem?

We will see some opportunities open through injuries, but if you're a prospect that's not a motivating situation to wait in. Especially if there's 3-4 guys all waiting for that one spot to open.

Besides, even though defensemen are the most tradeable assets, trades are still hard to make these days, especially during the season. It's obviously a manageable issue, but I agree with the OP that hope also matters, that it's likely better for prospects to know there WILL be spots open. Right now, they really can't know that.

That said: I like our defensive core and I'm willing to take the logjam problem that comes with it

[Geeoff]

I think internal competition is extremely important to prospect development. Wanna make the Flames? Be better than Matt Bartkowski. Last year Kulak, Wotherspoon and Jokipakka were not better than Bartkowski and the Flames were losing games as a result.

PS:. Didn't we draft Rasmus Andersson with the pick we got for Baertschi?

[bubbsy]

I don't disagree, we can question the organization's development process, but at the end of the day the player's gotta make it too tough a decision to send them down by using the time they get with the big club to prove themselves.

Frankly, many of the AHLers just haven't really impressed in recent camps or when called up for injury coverage, in my opinion.

[Completely]

Originally Posted by Itse

SPOTS:
- Brouwer ended the season on the 4th line, and can be pushed down there again. Same could happen to someone else.
- It's far from obvious that the 1st line RW spot is taken.
- It wouldn't surprise me if Backlund-Frolik once again got a prospect on their line.
- There's always injuries.

In other words, the lines are very far from set.

I feel like Janko or Lazar will be put there. Let Bennett play with Tkachuk then they can have their 3 pairings. Hopefully those two wouldn't be a constant parade to the penalty box though.

[dobbles]

Couple of thoughts...

Saw the overripe comment about the wings above. As someone that was a huge wings fan for a long time, can we honestly say they benefited from that concept? Were any impact players groomed through those years? Tatar and Nyquist both went through that and I honestly think it stunted their growth and we are now seeing an organization that has not been able to replace core pieces. The overripe strategy assumes that a player still has things to learn or work on in the minors. I think many times a player benefits much more from learning at the nil level.

Also, the whole "you have to earn your spot" stiff makes me laugh. Because training camp and preseason are pretty short and poor measures of a players abilities. Not to mention when there are close battles almost every time the veteran stays and the young player with waiver exemption gets sent down to save assets. Organizations need to give players opportunities to prove themselves aside from the preseason when games are not anywhere near the same intensity or competition level.

[GranteedEV]

NHL-readiness and NHL opportunity are a-chicken-and-an-egg. Too much evaluation is made from small sample sizes - and the two things that come with small sample sizes - disproportionate on-ice shooting percentages and on-ice save percentages. Two things prospects can't necessarily control. Add in nervous coaches benching effective players for every mistake and I am not convinced the "strong training camp" or "make-the-most-of-your-callup" trains of thought are actually useful. Then throw in rationalized narratives we've heard from management like "you played great... in March when the team was out of it". And then players who clear waivers get another stigma on them on top of that, as career AHLers, even though it makes no sense that players with all the tools, and the toolbox, playing the best hockey of their careers at 23-25 are considered less likely to be useful NHL contributors if they already cleared waivers.

It's a reputation/pedigree league, not a pure-merit league. I think a strong portion of the of the Penguins' success the last two years has been that their AHL coach was promoted to the NHL mid-season - a coach who intimately knew the capabilities of AHL players like Murray, Sheary, Dumoulin, Rust, etc from the minor leagues and was willing to give them opportunities we could not have fathomed under the previous coach - opportunities ahead of established veterans like Fleury, Kunitz, Lovejoy, etc. Sounds crazy in retrospect, but look at how much of their farm team was promoted in December/January 2016... it may have saved their playoff hopes, never mind cup aspirations. It's crazy to think adding AHLers would improve a team. What it boils down to IMO, is that AHL quality of competition is higher than NHL front offices and coaching are willing to admit. No, you don't have the Crosby and McDavid and Getzlaf, but is there really such an obvious gap separating a Morgan Klimchuk from most established NHL bottom sixers? Probably not, but try telling that to the guy writing the cheaue for a big money four year contract.

It's not just young player VS vet that needs to be considered... there is also this misusage of veterans to stabilize youth. I agree that you need a Matt Stajan and a Mikael Backlund to shelter a Sam Bennett and a Sean Monahan. You need a Mark Giordano to lead a Dougie Hamilton. Absolutely you need these capable veterans. But at the bottom of the lineup you run into the issue of inadequate talent and contrived fits - where the vet who made his career relying on his partner to the heavy lifting on a pair/line, is now putting that same pressure on the prospect to play outside or beyond their strengths. We have seen it last year where Sam Bennett, Tyler Wotherspoon, Brett Kulak, Mark Jankowski, Freddie Hamilton were put into positions where the veterans were hurting more than helping. You are not playing "sheltered minutes" if your winger is five steps behind on the forecheck or your D partner keeps throwing the puck to the other team. Prospects need sheltering, but that doesn't just mean hiding them from eliteopposing players... it means giving them teammates who support their strengths without magnifying their flaws.

Hopefully Michael Stone can do that for Brett Kulak/Tyler Wotherspoo , and Jankowski/Bennett can get either each other, or Frolik/Tkachuk on their wings.

[GreenLantern]

Good post, it's become clear that specifically Chicago's success has been their ability to promote their younger players and get more out of them. The table is set for at least 2 players to get promoted this year, I hope to see Jankowski and a D man full time in the NHL out of training camp.

[Sylvanfan]

Injuries at some point will open up another spot on the backend for the Flames. It's during those fill in times where you find out how the young guys can handle themselves. Really any of Stone/Brodie/Hamonic and even Hamilton could be traded for a nice return to open a spot.

Up front is where I think the Flames need to start graduating players. Right now they have 5 first round picks from the 2013 draft on the roster. This is the year where a couple guys need to make a push for the NHL. Only Lazar out of the 4 later picks seems to have a spot on the roster. So it's time for Klimchuck/Poirier/Shinkarick to do something.

In the coming years it will be important for home grown guys to start replacing the Stajan/Brouwer/Frolik production for lower salaries.

Tanking is starting to happen in every sport. I think it's a trend that's going to stay as teams will really go for it in a 2-3 year window and a accumulate young players when they're out of it. Much like Baseball where teams following this model have been able to be in the playoffs in the past 10 years. It seems to be the teams who stray from this that wallow in mediocrity forever.

[Flames Fan, Ph.D.]

Originally Posted by GranteedEV

It's a reputation/pedigree league, not a pure-merit league. I think a strong portion of the of the Penguins' success the last two years has been that their AHL coach was promoted to the NHL mid-season - a coach who intimately knew the capabilities of AHL players like Murray, Sheary, Dumoulin, Rust, etc from the minor leagues and was willing to give them opportunities we could not have fathomed under the previous coach - opportunities ahead of established veterans like Fleury, Kunitz, Lovejoy, etc. Sounds crazy in retrospect, but look at how much of their farm team was promoted in December/January 2016... it may have saved their playoff hopes, never mind cup aspirations.

This is a great point. But I do think it has one additional perspective: a coach who came from the AHL would be more willing to accept a mistake from this AHL-promoted player. I think a big part of playing rookies is trust: NHL coaches appear to prefer seeing a mistake from a player they're familiar with rather than one they're new to. Case in point, Hartley would bench rookies in a split second after the smallest shortcoming.

It's human nature, but I see it a lot on the ice.

[CliffFletcher]

Originally Posted by dobbles

Couple of thoughts...

Saw the overripe comment about the wings above. As someone that was a huge wings fan for a long time, can we honestly say they benefited from that concept? Were any impact players groomed through those years? Tatar and Nyquist both went through that and I honestly think it stunted their growth and we are now seeing an organization that has not been able to replace core pieces.

Neither Tatar (60 OA) nor Nyquist (121 OA) were blue chip prospects. For 15 years the Wings have been trying to rejuvenate their lineup without any high-first picks, and often without any first-round picks at all. You could argue that without the patient approach of the Wings, Tatar and Nyquist wouldn't have become NHL regulars at all.

Fans are impatient. But the reality is far more players have had their development ruined by rushing them into the NHL than by keeping them in the AHL too long.