Quote:
Originally Posted by Tinordi
Tampa's strange scoring woes aside, Drouin is basically in the worst situation to break into the league. If he's drafted to literally almost any other team he gets 15 minutes a night. He just doesn't have that luxury on Tampa.
Killorn, Filpulla, Callahan are established NHL players who play at all ends of the ice. They're complete players. Drouin isn't knocking one of those guys out, unless he simply dominates. No one from the draft class has dominated to the extent that they would displace one of those players.
Namestikov was a PPG player in the AHL and is 24 years old. Again, he's just a completely different player. Seasoned. Drouin was never really going to displace him either. And after that is where Drouin is slotting in, at around 13 minutes a night between the 3rd and 4th lines. Drouin's battling with Marchessault and Brown and yeah he's been given a very short leash.
My riposte to you would be to name 5 teams that Drouin would have an even tougher time breaking into the top 9. Going to be difficult.
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Tampa is deeper than most teams at forward, it's true. I have no doubt Drouin would be getting 15 min a night with 80% of the teams out there. That doesn't mean anything in regards to his situation in Tampa though, given the extraordinary struggles of half of their forwards.
There's no reason guys like Callahan, Killorn and Filppula couldn't contribute in more defensive roles if their acumen is so strong. Put them on the 3rd line and use them in a shutdown role if they're so good, it's not like they are scoring. Reading what Tampa fans have to say, they are flabbergasted that those three get so many opportunities on the PP and top two lines while Drouin gets nothing. I guess they've been just brutal all year, not even snake bitten, just contributing nothing offensively at all. Even if Namestnikov was ppg in the AHL and even if he's slightly better than Drouin at the moment, I would still give priority to Drouin... IF he truly is as good as they say. The difference between Drouin and Namestnikov can't be the difference between winning and losing unless Drouin is just THAT bad.
He can't be as good as people say AND not be able to crack that lineup in it's current form. It's not last year anymore, the forwards are playing like ass and the team is struggling. It is literally the perfect time to ease a young, prodigious player into the lineup, if nothing else other than to do something different and shake things up. What they are doing now is clearly not working, and stuffing Drouin into the AHL isn't going to solve their woes but it looks like it will be the final blow and they will lose his services permanently as a result. If he pans out as some expected, it could very well be another St.Louis situation, just in reverse this time for Tampa, unless they can get a great return of course. More than likely, it will be a bunch of lotto tickets and prospects that probably will not pan out.