The point is, Juan is acting like the USHL was beneath Gagner and held back his development yet this doesn't bear out given the kid didn't exactly tear it up. I could understand Juan's argument if a player was playing against opponents that were inferior to him but, from a statistical point of view, it is clear Gagner was on a level that challenged him quite a bit.
It my opinion, there can be no dispute that playing 85+ games with the London Knights in the OHL, with and against better players, going all the way to the OHL championship, would have served Gagner's development much better than playing for Sioux City in the USHL.
I didn't say or imply that the USHL didn't challenge him. But in comparison to the OHL, and practicing/playing every day with Schremp, Bolland, Kostistyn etc., under the direction of Dale Hunter? Please. He was the second leading scorer in Sioux City, behind DeSimone, whom I recall being a plug from Buffalo who never got a sniff from the OHL. A 16-year-old being one of the top two scorers on his OHL team would be extremely unusual.
A year ago at this time, no one in Ontario would have said that Bryan Cameron was a better player than his former long-time teammate Sam Gagner. Not even close. Yet Cameron makes the U-18 team, and Gagner doesn't. Why? Some of it must be attributable to the development that each player underwent this past season.