Quote:
Originally Posted by ma-skis.com
I have to believe that the developmental system plays a part in colorado and detroit as well, (assuming you're talking about datsyuk, zetterberg, drury,, hejduk)
those systems were flush with strong leaders and strong teams and kids didn't need to be fast tracked through and have huge expectations put on them.
As important scouting is, I would have to say player development would have to play an equally important roll, an 18 year old kid still has a lot of development, physically and maturity wise to consider. If you do it wrong, you end up ruining careers, *cough* daigle *cough*
right now, flames are taking their time and developing servicable players, start there, and lte blooming stars like datsyuk will eventually come out of the woodwork.
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People like to point at Detroit as the model for player development, but not every player is Zetterberg or a Datsyuk and should be treated as such. They're out there, but so are plenty of other players who have done just fine with quicker development paths. What about guys like Zajac? You can stall guys by holding them back too long, and I think the Flames are guilty of this.
I think a big part of this is that when you have someone like Brule come in young and not have success you get to watch them fail. They guys who become career minor leaguers because they never got better by playing against better competition? Look at a guy like Backlund. The Flames could have easily said "he's not ready", but they called him up and it worked. (Granted, I'd rather have him in the AHL than the press box.)
I also think the cap has changed things, as well as the lowere UFA age. The best cap value guys are on their 1st contract. 2nd contract, you start losing your advantage from having drafted the guy. 3rd contract, you're paying for UFA years, at just about UFA right. Guy hits UFA, your advantage is gone. Look at Nystrom. He developed slow, and as a result has barely been around and already qualifies for UFA after this season. This makes it advantageous to develop guys quicker.