The only rookies that have seen consistent ice time in the playoffs under Cooper were Paquette, Palat and Johnson in 2014 (hard to count Barberio and Sustr 2 or 3 games last year vs Montréal since our depth at the blueline was an incommensurable joke), Nesterov is playing defense, a position with more responsibilities moreover. The rest of them have been healthy scratches for the majority of the time. Carle or Sustr won't play less for Nesterov, we have to accept Cooper doesn't trust rookies, maybe for a good reason, a reason I'm not aware of seeing how our 3rd pairing has been totally abused by Chicago's speed and skills so far. So unless injuries, getting 3 goals down in the first period or the Hawks giving us 10 PP opportunities Nestea's ice-time will remain rather low in the SCF.
The simple fact that Cooper decided to put a rookie dman, with our present depth, into the line-up for 16 games already speaks volume about Nestea's progression since called-up though. Just re-watched the 2 first games of the Detroit series and you can see he has a bright future in this league, he had some insane shifts.
Still I'm not sure if I'd rather not see 10 minutes of Drouin instead of Nesterov at the moment, if Cooper just doesn't use him more than 3, 4 minutes a game, Drouin would be more useful.
