Trying to understand the conditioning argument, I do realize that bad conditioning doesn't always show immediately. It's possible it was just used as a quick way out during the interview by the head coach of course, but is it possible that the conditioning issues presented itself after a few weeks, when he wasn't able to keep up with the KHL pace that long, after spending significant time in North America, and in Hartford where they go without games for 5 days?
He had an assist last night so that's at least something positive.
I view the conditioning stint as a convenient excuse to try and send a message to a kid they might not feel like they have control of. I think we can both agree that there's been plenty of times in sports where teams use bs excuses to send a player down, hold them out of the lineup, or serve whatever purpose they see fit.
If you just look at the timeline of events it seems like a kid who has been poorly advised after having a poor attitude to adversity. To me, especially with how underwhelming he has been, I don't buy that two weeks off of skating ruined him to a point of a conditioning stint. I'd say it's probably more likely his bad attitude is carrying over, he came back expecting it to be easier, and when it wasn't he got another bad attitude. After everything that happened in NY it's not outlandish to think this is the scenario now.
Again, it's not the end of the road for the kid, but it's a lot easier to buy he still has a bad attitude rather than his conditioning is lost. Lets all be real here, the KHL may be oddly more well conditioned because of how teams view their players but the NHL is the NHL. Training Camp is taken seriously by non-veteran players. He was in the gym all summer and had been on the ice for over a month. In real action.
It just seems much more plausible he has a bad attitude not a poor set of lungs and legs at Christmas time.