Quote:
Originally Posted by GranteedEV
Yelesin could be worse but who knows? Maybe he's better. A lot of great teams didn't come together until they called guys up and let them play. Even last year's Flames were beneficiaries of the opportuntieis Kylington, Czarnik, Mangiapane, Rittich, Quine, and a few others were being given (and then that got cut down hard after the all star break)
I'm with you in that you shouldn't overplay a guy because of what he was able to do five years ago. Distribute minutes based on actual performance, not experience and your irrational fear of playing other guys.
In a perfect world every player is slotted based on their performance not based on their name recognition. But we don't have the luxury of a coach like Laviolette or Sullivan who operate that way.
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There so much assumption and false premise in this post.
First, we are talking about right now, and whether a cheaper contract on the third pairing is better. The answer is that the contract salary is irrelevant. Ice the best team.
Second, the assumption that Yelesin (or anyone) is being kept on the farm over Hamonic because of Hamonic's name and past performance is ridiculous. You have it in for Hamonic, but he is still a very good defenceman when you look at his play in isolation. He makes good defensive plays all the time, which go unnoticed. His only problem, IMO, is a mismatch with Hanifin.
Third, this is a coaching staff that hasn't hesitated to play a second year guy in Andersson on the first pairing. They've put Brodie on the third pairing before. They've put higher paid forwards on the third and fourth lines. Yelesin is a guy with 4 points in Stockton. He plays a fairly physical game but so do guys with more experience, like Hamonic. He's not being barred by Hamonic because of name recognition.
You don't switch Hamonic with Yelesin (or Stone or Davidson) at this point because Hamonic makes too much for the third pairing. He's on a one way contract - he costs the same either way. If they play better than him, fine, but I don't see it happening. Plus, if he was on the third pairing, he'd only be playing behind one guy making less than him - Rasmus. And that guy is (a) on an ELC, which happens all the time and (b) going to make more next year than Hamonic makes now, so that's what management thinks of his status.