According to HF Bruins, Knight "getting screwed" by every coach, ever had more to do with his lack of success as a professional. USA Hockey staff, our own Bruce Cassidy, all the Hunters and likely his pee wee coach all allegedly screwed him over, causing him not to be invited to the combine, not getting first line minutes in juniors, not being developed properly in Providence and, finally, not being invited to try out for Team USA.
Little of that was heard from Knight himself, of course. It is far easier to indulge in fantasy than believe others view one of the Bruins' draftees in a lesser light that we would have hoped.
You have a few things wrong here.
The Hunters liked Knight and lured him away from the US Dev Program after he had committed to them as a teen. There was a battle over his rights and USA Hockey no doubt black-balled him after that, which while unfair, is somewhat understandable. At the time, the US was known to hold grudges against players that went the Canadian Junior route rather than stay with the US Dev program and college. Knight was far from the only one to experience this, so I’m not sure what your point is.
He was a solid all-around player for London and better defensively than some of the other guys, which was likely largely responsible for them deploying him in a more defensive role. However, it was also fact that he had already been drafted and that is the “job” of a Junior team to get as many of their guys drafted as possible. The reason that players elect to play for a high-profile team like London is linked to their ability to get their players noticed and drafted. I don’t think it’s some sort of conspiracy theory level thinking to suggest that a Junior team would put an undrafted player in a position to score points and get drafted. It’s good for the player and good for the team.
Every coach has favorites. Hell, I had favorites coaching my kid’s teams. Anybody that says otherwise is lying. I totally believe that Knight was not one of Cassidy’s “favorites”. That may very well have stemmed from the fact that Knight couldn’t stay healthy. Maybe Cassidy felt he couldn’t trust him in a key role because he was always dinged up or recovering from something? A coach isn’t going to hitch his cart to a guy that can’t stay in the lineup.
I do know that a lot of Knight’s issues early on went back to him coming back early from a high ankle sprain and playing hurt so he could help the team in the Memorial Cup. It led to him changing his skating stride and some subsequent hamstring problems.
All of this is spilled milk and I’m not sure what it has to do with Senyshyn? I see very little in the way of similarities between the two players, other than them not developing the way (or as quickly as) fans hoped.
