Quote:
Originally Posted by Strange Brew
Funny how most of us assume Hamilton is in the top 3. Before the deadline and Wideman's suspension, he was #5 in icetime. I suspect he will be #4 in icetime when Wideman comes back and who knows what the offseason will bring. On this team with this coaching staff, he still has yet to earn top 3 status.
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Hartley is simply building his ice-time slowly, and trying to get Hamilton to play his (Hartley's) way.
The kid is 22. And I am sure the organization has discussed not simply
handing it to him.
The other factor is that they still have (had) vets in the way. Hartley favours vets, and Wideman and Russell were going to get more ice-time than him.
My expectation is that Hamilton moves from 5th to 4th in ice-time next year. And then just keeps growing from there. He will probably move to 1st PP next year as well.
But the Flames clearly seem to want to build him slowly. And that is a good thing, IMO.