[Rick M.]

Originally Posted by Calgary4LIfe

Not too sure where you are going with this. My point was that Dion - according to Rhett Warrener - did NOT care to be mentored at all by the existing defencemen on the team (namely Rhett and Regehr). They had brought it up to Keenan's attention, and Keenan refused to do anything about it. Dion never got better defensively - some might say he regressed.

Now, my point is that as long as Kylington isn't like that, he should improve defensively. Does he want to improve? Well, based on his interviews since the draft, he does. Will he? Time will tell.

Why are you comparing his defensive game to Phaneuf's? Why do we necessarily care so much how good a player's defensive game is as a 17/18 year old? Are you trying to say that Kylington will never be as good defensively as Phaneauf? I am just not really following the logic here.

I am sure Phaneuf was a much better prospect than a lot of players even in his own draft year - Weber, Suter, etc.. How said prospect develops - and how said prospect WANTS to develop - is something that time will tell. I just don't see where you are going with "Phaneuf was much better defensively than Kylington" statement. Not sure if anyone would argue with it, but I bet there sure as heck would be a very large contingent that would agree with: "If Kylington puts in the time and effort to learn, and has some stability and experienced coaching in the next couple of years, he may very well be a better defencemen than Phaneuf". Why not? I think there is a whole lot of defencemen drafted this year that you can make that blanket statement about. Like everyone in the first 3 rounds at least.

You never know a prospect will develop. Everyone develops differently, hits different plateaus, exceeds expectations or become disappointments.

I'm sure the reason the Flames are interested in getting OK to North America is so that they can supervise his development. I have confidence that they talked with the player about his willingness to learn to play without the puck before drafting him.