yeah i'm sure it's just a coincidence that so many players did well at lower levels and then failed to progress under his watch
skating is something people improve all the time it's not an unsolvable issue
Ouellet and Marchenko were PHYSICALLY outmatched. They weren't physically fast enough to keep up with the guys they were defending without cheating.
Petr Mrazek did well and did badly at all levels. Mrazek is not some example to use about succeeding or failing. Dude had a year and a half of really good hockey in Detroit. Then people found out that he cheats and plays uber aggressive and used it against him and then he didn't work with his goalie coach on that.
Teemu Pulkkinen was the quintessential 4A guy. He clearly had more talent than AHL level, but the only NHL level tool he had was a big shot... and even that was a slow windup that would never work in the NHL.
Why is everyone acting like these guys were ****ing superstars in the minors and oh no, mean ol' Blashill ****ed them up? They all had some kind of thing that was going to be a fatal flaw if they didn't fix it. That's why they tended to be around in the 4th and later. Ouellet was a second rounder and maybe could/should have done more... but he just skated like he was in cement.
It's not a coincidence that these guys failed. They were longshots from the word go (again, aside from maybe Ouellet) and IF they succeeded it would have been a home run. They were guys that had one good tool and that the Wings thought maybe they could sand down the rough edges on everything besides that tool to make them usable.
And I mean, a guy like Ouellet. He had 29 points in 61 games at GRG. He wasn't an offensive dynamo nor a top shutdown defenseman. Marchenko was a bottom pairing shutdown defenseman. Seriously, let's stop acting like the Wings were drafting like gods and it was just the stupid ass player development people who had no idea what to do with them. They took flawed players and tried to fix their flaws. For most of them, they couldn't. And neither could anyone else really, which is why you don't see Ouellet or Marchenko or Pulkkinen in Edmonton or Boston or Toronto lighting up the scoreboard or putting a lid on the other team. They picked high floor guys without much of a ceiling.
Seriously, if the Wings were so bad and ruined so many players, where the hell are any successes of guys after they left here? Obviously a change of scenery should have worked wonders for these guys who were so good but were just stifled by bad coaching.
Oh but wait, it's not their fault anymore, mean ol' Jeff just crushed their confidence so bad that they're worthless as hockey assets. Even after he promoted up to the Wings he even drug those guys down in GRG. It's amazing.
I mean, Nail Yakupov was a G-D superstar before he got to the NHL. Then he came up and flamed out miserably. Angelo Esposito, Julius Honka, Cam Barker, etc. Guys who performed well at lower levels flame out or don't progress literally all the time. Add in the fact that the guys in question for Detroit here all had, at best, 20% chances to even make the NHL, why do you think it's a surprise that none of them turned out to be any good?