Well, it's part of it. A bad back, a bad team situation, and domino effect all had something to do with that. The fact that our team moved up in the draft to grab him should tell you that his fall was exaggerated.
"I thought he did a really great job."
http://www.calgarysun.com/2016/07/07...-american-game
Just a reminder, and I am as aware as anyone about the risks/limited value of the stat - but Kylington was actually a plus player in the AHL in his 2nd year as a pro.
While having a 21 year old rookie partner on an AHL contract with a whopping two points in 56 games(Doetzal).
While playing relatively high measured QualityOfCompetition.
While still being 19 years old in a league where he would not have been eligible by age if he had ever played a CHL game.
While leading his team in defensive scoring.
It's not as if Kylington was a liability for his team. Even though he was the youngest player on it. He had ups and downs like anyone else, but so did Andersson, and Gillies, and to a lesser extent Rittich.
People sometimes forget all the good a skilled player does every time he screws up. We even saw it last year with Gaudreau, he could be having a two point night, but a turnover at the blues and he'd be the goat
in a win. Kylington makes mistakes trying to do too much. It's not as easy as telling him to stop trying. He wasn't drafted to be Kris Russell and just wire the puck along the boards every time he got near it. It's a complex position and the team is aware of that.
You have to weigh the good with the bad, not fixate on the bad. It's like how Tre described Mike Smith's puck moving... sometimes you'll facepalm but that doesn't mean you want to cut it out of his game.
And you seem to have confused "not rapidly progressed to sure-fire top pairing D" with "hasn't progressed". He has progressed. But there is progression left to go. It's not as simple as it sounds. Anybody can make the easy play, but there's a fine line between defaulting to it and knowing when it's necessary at high speeds. Or have people already forgotten that even Gio sometimes got himself into trouble as a young player... who was 5-6 years older than Kylington.
If Kylington hadn't progressed since his draft, he would not have gotten Sweden's WJC "best player in the Bronze Medal Game" award, because he simply wasn't good enough to do that in his draft year.