So we're fine so long as we never have more than two or three injuries at any given time? Not fond of that.

And I simply disagree with the bolded. I don't know what it is about Bemstrom that has everyone convinced he's terrible but the kid is following an IMO very clear and blatantly obvious Bjorkstrand development path, to my eye.

The only way injuries would become an issue is if they end up with 4 injuries and none of them are ones they would want to put on LTIR. Even then, they would only have to play 1 game short before they can make use of emergency call ups. Considering how many games they played with a forward getting less than 7 mins of ice time last year, I don't think that's at all an issue they should be concerned with.

I think you're way overvaluing Bemstrom if you don't see Puljujarvi as clearly better. He has better metrics while playing against vastly superior opponents. Bemstrom simply does not show any signs of being a comparable to Bjorkstrand or even a top 9 player. Bjorkstrand already had close to double the points Bemstrom currently has by the same age and in only 3 more games. Bemstrom has gotten all sorts of opportunities and just hasn't been able to capitalize on any of them.

I'm talking more about the general arc of "come into the org highly touted for offense, see that offense seemingly vanish at the next level while he turns into a defensive juggernaut, and then suddenly the offense comes back without any defensive loss."

Bemstrom has already matched Bjorkstrand's defensive capability. He is already a valuable player for that alone. If the offense comes back, it'll be like Ollie never left.

Bemstrom absolutely has not matched Bjorkstrand's defensive ability. He doesn't play against against nearly the quality of competition that Bjorkstrand does. The role he plays has to be taken into account when his stats are examined. His stats are good, but he's often played against significantly softer opponents than any of the team's truly talented defensive players. The only teams he even crossed 15 mins in TOI against last year were Montreal and Detroit.

Looks similar to me based on having watched both guys develop. As for current capability, well, competition (and other things) has been accounted for in the charts I'm looking at.

Sorry, but I don't buy it. Put him in an actual game situation where he's defending against top 6 players regularly and then I'd listen to anything about him being comparable to Bjorkstrand. Otherwise it's complete speculation based on wildly different playing circumstances and any attempted translation from advanced stats is going to be dubious at best.