Quote:
Originally Posted by Classic_Sniper
I don’t generally take everything Darryl says in the press as 100% truth. He uses the media from time to time. I remember him saying something along the lines of not benching players because he didn’t believe in it. Yet he benched players just recently.
I look at the evidence and the evidence tells me that Sutter prefers vets over youth. Lewis hasn’t been scratched once this season, yet Dube has been scratched/benched several times. Valimaki is back in the minors when Geoff Ward was playing him as a regular. Ruzicka back in the minors as well despite being very productive in this season. There was also last season when Sutter demoted Hanifin and moved Gio back to the top pair.
I don’t even think it’s necessarily age that’s the problem. Younger players are generally not filled out physically, their games are typically more raw and less refined. There’s lot of subtle nuances to the game and vets usually learn those over the course of their careers. I suspect if a rookie had all of these traits, Darryl would probably play them over the vet. It’s just hard to find young players who are already finished products.
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I think Sutter in this case was 100% truthful. I think he even said something along the lines is he doesn't prefer vets, and all the youth has to do is take the spot away from the vet and they get the ice time. And that isn't because he likes old vs. young, it's because the vets tend to do what Sutter would consider the foundational required to succeed better more consistently.
Fans on the other hand tend to look at the other way, where the bottom 6 vet should need to un-seed a younger player. I think that's because we mostly overvalue upside and potential over the foundational things. One, for starters, it's hard to simply observe some of the foundational things a vet does better when watching a game, vs. observing the higher end talent and potential a young player brings to the table.
Lewis and Dube this year is the perfect use case. Lewis is not an amazing player, and we all can see what his upside / ceiling is. It's certainly a lot lower than Dube. Said another way, Dube's best game, is visibly better than Lewis'. But Lewis does all the little things (Sutter would call it play the right way, defensive and checking mindset) more consistently than Dube night in night out. For Sutter, and it's hard to argue with his results, offensive comes after you do the responsible stuff first, so he favors those that do that, which tends to be the vets because he knows the results for the team will be better. All we see as the average fan is that Dube creates more sometime than Lewis, and we mistakenly think all else is equal, so why not Dube over Lewis.
Sutter has given every younger player who has successfully started with responsibility with the ice time they deserve, and when that happens they un-seat the vets. Maybe you are right, it might be it just takes time to physically develop, but I actually think has more to do with learning how to play right, that takes time. We've even seen how many of our best players have had to learn that this year, and what a difference that has made.