That was a characteristic of the Feaster regime that I found irksome - hyping of the young players in the organization. In a conversation I had with Craig Button very recently, he said that one of the most important lessons he learned in Dallas (from Mike Modano in fact) was just how damaging high expectations can be on the mental aspect of a young player's development.
Enter Brian Burke and all of a sudden everything is "I'm not sure what kind of player we have in Bartschi" and "players can't spend too much time in the AHL" and "Johnny is really small, even tiny".
|