Quote:
Originally Posted by nik-
And why exactly is Shore getting the NHL time over Granlund? Granlund has earned it more and should be here. Unless they just don't want to put Granlund in that 4th line center role, which is the only reason this makes sense.
|
Granlund has had a lot of time in the NHL this year with 37 games played. That's a large enough sample for this year for the evaluation team to view him as a known quantity.
He still has parts of his game to work on, especially face-offs. He's a decent defensive center right now who has some offensive upside that will eventually come, and a little on the small side, but he's not quite ready for full time duty yet.
Shore was viewed by another organization as essentially NHL ready, but they didn't have room for him on the roster and he would have been lost to waivers if they had brought him up. The Flames want to see what Shore can offer at the NHL level, but needed to wait until after the trade deadline to avoid the same waiver situation should they need to send him down. Shore has 68 NHL games to Granlund's 44, and although he doesn't have overwhelming point totals at 20 compared to Granlund's 16, he does have the size and face-off ability to be an effective bottom 6 center while Stajan is out.
But even considering all that, Shore is still an unknown quantity in terms of the Flames team dynamic, and the brass needs to see where he could fit in going into the off-season. Getting 20 games to end the year will give them an idea of that, whereas they already have a good read on Granlund.
We're still building my friend, and thus you have to give players an opportunity.