I'm more than willing to give Ferland more time to figure out his game. See these flashes of brilliance and you think he does have top 6 potential. And then you see a few games where he is invisible. I look at it this way, he's young, he's had substance abuse problems, he's had concussions/other injuries. He has also been placed in too many different line combos. I think he is a type of player who needs consistent linemates in order to get comfortable. Give him 5-10 games consistently with linemates and see what the can do. But a game here, a game there etc doesn't help him imo.
But really, between the injuries, substance abuse etc I think he's truly behind on his development curve and with that he's not going to be the most confident player out there. This should allow him more time before we write him off having a chance to be a top 6. We saw a confident kid in the Vancouver series but can we see more of that consistently? Maybe not to that extent, but a lead hitter on the team who can create space for our higher end talent and ability to contribute more offensively could yet happen imo. Hell, even if he doubles his miserable 3.4% shooting percentage he would be quite valuable. Maybe he tops out as a 3rd line guy who contributes a fair amount of points, who knows but I do think there is too much there to place him a 4th line grinder role.