[Mr.Coffee]

Originally Posted by Lanny_McDonald

Completely disagree. I think his contract status will influence who they call up. Phillips is not guaranteed to come up and be a scoring machine like some are suggesting. It is more likely a player of his stature comes up and does very little, unable to compete with the quicker and much bigger players. The road to the NHL is littered with small players in the exact same situation, including last season's AHL scoring champ, Andrew Poturalski. I think the team would much rather invest that possible development time in a player that has potential to help out in more roles and will be with the team longer term, learning from the call up. I would think they are better off with Zary, Jones, or Pelletier getting the time, and are better options to help the team now and in the future. If they are looking to call up a player with a limited shelf life, Zahorna can play multiple positions in multiple roles and is the big body that Sutter loves to rely upon.



I didn't say they were disenchanted with him. I said they didn't think he was an NHL player. I said they were giving him one last chance on a show-me contract. Phillips was given a one-year two-way deal at league minimum with an AHL salary of $140K, knowing he would be a class 6 UFA at its end, which is not a ringing endorsement of the team's confidence in his chances. If they felt he was going to be an NHL player they would have given him a more substantial offer with some term, no?

They gave him a show-me contract, and he showed them. So…