Quote:
Originally Posted by SuperMatt18
To me it's less about mentorship and more about on-ice protection.
You don't want to have to throw the Parekh, Morin, Poirier, and Brzstewicz's of the world right into top pair or maybe even top 4 minutes.
Same with the Forwards.
I look at Bedard in Chicago and I think his performance and confidence has been hurt by having to shoulder all the tough minutes and matchups from his first shift in the NHL.
On the ice protection is the bigger reason you keep some vets around, more so than off ice mentorship or culture reasons.
There is a reason guys like Tkachuk, Zary, Coronato all took steps and speak to how great Backlund was to their development. And I'm sure guys like Bahl / Miromanov are similar benefiting from playign shift after shift with guys lke Andersson and Weegar.
Just throwing the young guys to the wolves without having proper slotting and protection for somebody else to take the tough matchups is how you stunt them early on.
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Yeah, I used mentor, which I actually hate as a term because everyone throws that word around. I don't think there's a lot of vets who actively teach kids techniques or what not. But just by being a good pro around the room, they "mentor". And if you have no guys who know the game well, these kids get into a losing culture. How close were the Oilers when they ran with kids versus bringing in guys who'd been around?