I disagree with many of you saying Santos was wrong about the patience he was preaching and Tallon has plenty of patience. I also disagree that many of the prospects had nothing left to accomplish in juniors and weren't rushed. There was way too many guys rushed to the NHL too quickly, regardless of how relied upon they are in the lineup (and I'll ignore Kulikov since he was from a prior regime). Even if a prospect is physically NHL ready, it doesnt make them mentally or skill-wise ready for the NHL. And its even more magnified when you rely on them to be top players on the team so quickly.
Tallon was almost able to sign Gudbranson after being drafted and had his agent not played hardball, Guds would've been in the NHL and not sent back to juniors that first year. Still, he had (and still does) have room to improve on both sides of the puck. Defensively, he still needs to improve on his positioning and awareness. Much of that could've been done in juniors for an additional yr and probably allow him to spend last season in the AHL. He also needed to improve on the offensive side of things and only this season started to look even serviceable as a NHL defender. No way can anyone justify that he wouldn't have benefited from returning one more yr in juniors.
Huberdeau still could've worked on his skating and defensive side of the puck in juniors the rest of last season instead of bringing him up during a lockout season. Not to mention, he was basically injured most of last season with that hip situation from the WJC and needed surgery this offseason as a result. Having him play as long as we did on that last yr, it obviously set him back this season.
Bjugstad also should've been in the AHL this yr, no matter how successful he was. He slowed down later in the year due to not being accustomed to the length of the NHL schedule and he missed several games to start the season due to the concussion. He should've got acclimated to the longer schedule in the minors league first.
Shore was slightly rushed last yr as well due to injuries that occurred and he eventually showed it, struggling to put up points as the season wore on. Again, another player that should've been kept in the minors to adjust to the pro schedule for a season before getting the call.
Markstrom was also rushed last yr due to injuries and he obviously struggled in front of our porous defense. We probably damaged him as a prospect and thus why he's now gone from the org in favor of a more proven (and what he would aspire to be) in Luongo.
I'll reserve judgement on Barkov as he seemed to have all of the physically, mentally & skillsets to handle the NHL duties. Having played in a men's league last yr while leading his team probably had a large part in that aspect.
With how bad we were this yr (and it was obvious to everyone before the season started), there was no reason to rush prospects this yr for the finish we had as the 2nd to worst team in the NHL. We could've finished the same way having Gomez & Winchester consistently centering one of our lines as opposed to the prospects. Or call up any of the other guys from the AHL to fill holes when injures occurred (like Butler, Crabb, etc). Tallon has definitely been rushing our prospects more than they should be because he didnt have the players he had in place when he arrived in Chicago. He didnt have a Keith (who had 2 yrs in the AHL before Dale was named GM) or Seabrook (who spent 4 yrs in juniors) when he got here (guys who were more developed) as compared to Chicago and he also traded several scoring forwards almost right away (Vrbata, Havlat, Sharp). The only scoring forward he traded for early on here was Versteeg (Pirri may one too but not yet at least and farther down the rebuild path than his moves in Chicago) and he's already gone too.
