Quoting: Birtle34
I’m not sure that Maurice truly understands where he is, he’s not on the leafs or even Carolina no longer, no ufas to save u. The kids need to be the difference in status quo or progression or regression. He seems to shoot for status quo and got some progression out of the top end talent there, but without solid kids being developed, and a theory of mediocre to bad leaf teams of early 00s and pre salary cap. Setup roadblock galore in front of the youth and alienate them on the farm or skating in the black aces, instead of ice and developing by making mistakes one year to be ready the next or later. 15 sweep by Anaheim why was enstrom/other dman can’t remember his name in the lineup. Knowing full well that neither with the team a season later. Sorry for the rant, but some simple common sense needed. Jets fan since eagles/taglianetti and the late great hawerchuk/. But damn this squad deserves better
I agree and think they're playing with fire with some of these young guys by not clearing a path for them to make the team and contribute, Wheeler is 34, Roslovic and Laine want out and Vesalainen might be next, Perfetti MIGHT be ready next season or he could easily take another season to arrive and who knows if he'll be ready for a top 6 role right out of the gate when he does make the team, 35 year old Stastny is a UFA and Schiefele isn't getting any younger either, times ticking on this core.
The next best young players are Harkins and Appelton and both are pretty much question marks at this point, do they have top 6 forward potential, middle 6, 3rd liners or 4th liners? After those two there really isn't a forward prospect that looks like much yet, some past draft picks that have yet to be signed like Nikkanen, Nathan Smith, Santeri Virtanen and a few others so once again just more question marks, maybe they could amount to something but who knows at this point and really even if they sign and have great seasons with the Moose well so did Roslovic, Appleton and Niku and look how that's turned out so far.
I look at all that and contemplate how Maurice utilizes young players and the fact that Chevy is very inactive as a GM plus everything this organization has working against it in attracting better free agents and in the not too distant future this team could find itself in a really rough position with three quarters of a good top 6, a useless bottom 6 filled with grinders, cheap veterans and a pretty empty prospect pool.
The team that touts their draft and develop model better figure out if they want to let some of these kids play or just be a landing spot for 4th line plugs at the end of their careers, I know which I'd prefer to watch play hockey.