I'm not completely on board with the idea that the Rangers did absolutely nothing wrong here, but the way you frame this is ridiculous.
This season in the AHL his play was incredibly mediocre. I don't know how many AHL games you watched, but I watched a lot of AHL games when he was with the team. He was was a non-factor in most games. He had a few good games, but his effort looked to be a big question because he was playing worse than he had played in previous AHL seasons, which doesn't make much sense. He's since quit on the team. He accepted a suspension, so we do know that his attitude was a problem.
If he was treated unfairly to be in the AHL, he didn't prove the team wrong with how he played. He also didn't prove the team wrong with how he played in a 4th line role.
In the NHL, he's been rather abysmal. He's added almost nothing. The coach has also said that his in-game work habits are not yet suited for the NHL. Howden's play has probably not been much better yet in the NHL than Andersson's, but he puts in maximum work-ethic at all times every shift. Quinn gives him the benefit of the doubt because of that, and he doesn't give Andersson the benefit of the doubt. Maybe you could say neither deserves the benefit of the doubt, but I can understand why Howden has gotten it and Andersson hasn't. You can't argue that Quinn hasn't done well with developing young players. Nearly every young player on the team has improved with him as coach, so I think he's earned the benefit of the doubt in regards to how he's utilized Andersson.
I also think that many of us just don't think Andersson has such high upside. He's gotten plenty of NHL games, and has not shown the type of ability to impact shifts. It's not clear he has real strengths that will play as such in the NHL. We were told how good his hockey IQ was. It doesn't look anything out of the ordinary, but certainly not great. We were told how good his shot is. I can't even remember him scoring a goal. If he has, it's only a few, and he's played enough games that he should have a lot more goals than he did for a player with a strong or weak shot. He doesn't skate particularly well for the NHL game, his puck game and playmaking is rather mediocre. He's capable defensively, but I don't know how that would get someone a big role as an NHL forward. It usually doesn't. I think most believe that Andersson's realistic upside is probably a good bottom six forward now.
Very balanced post.
Apart from the much discussed personal issues (which I believe are very secondary to on-ice performance – ie if on-ice performance was there, everything would be rolling as ”planned”), here’s my take/hypothesis as a total outsider:
Lias Andersson has for the first time in his career hit a ceiling, and does not (currently) have the ability to handle it. There’s an underestimated talent when reaching for the highest level that is called ability to adapt. To ask yourself ”What does the game need from me”, rather than ”What do I want from the game”. Marcus Krüger had the ability. Sebastian Collberg and Max Friberg did not.
However, adaptation may not be good enough anyway – the ”fantastic allround player” from Junior or lower senior levels may just be nothing but mediocre in the NHL, and players with obvious flaws but some very specific high-end strengths may thrive in specific roles. There’s a clear value in ”fat tails”, averages don’t win. Magnus Pääjärvi, all cred to him, tried incredibly hard for many years, but never really succeeded.
I think adaptation talent goes hand in hand with hockey-IQ. It goes all the way back to why a player fell in love with the game of hockey in the first place. It’s a scale from ”Me, my stick and the puck” and ”Me, the ice, my teammates and the opposition”. Since I am not overly impressed with Lias’ general hockey-IQ, I am bearish on his chances in the NHL. The game pace seems too fast for his modus operandi.
From a Swedish perspective, I want to throw in some related thoughts about the development process, including composition of Junior national teams. We tend to put players in roles too early. In combination with rushing talent upward in age groups (where creative centers are put on third line wing and defenders play high glass, generally speaking) this is detrimental to developing the variety in the talent pool. I’m not advocating the Russian-type all-skill way, but we are much too far on the other side of the spectrum.
Back to Lias, he’s been put in team-leading roles all his life. Big minutes, pp, the go-to-guy, C on his jersey. Now he’s expected to be something else. Something his hockey education never has taught him and not really has exposed him to, unfortunately by design. He was, in a very simplified way of describing it, put on a one-way-track very early and has now reached a cul-de-sac (in an NHL perspective).
Now, at the end of the day he might come to the conclusion that his passion for the game is best nurtured in the SHL. Like Ryan Lasch, who loves his dominant role i Frölunda, but likely could have settled for a completely different role lower in the line-up in the NHL (the opposite choice being made by for example Pierre Edouard Bellemare).
I will revisit this post in a couple of years as the story pans out.
