He was somewhat mis-managed throughout the Bylsma era, but he never showed anything promising in his NHL time here. Pittsburgh was trying to win now, not waste time and roster space trying to teach a slow-developing prospect how to play hockey.
That might have been true for most of his career as a Pens player but during that first callup I remember there were some flashes of real potential. First of all, he had that sweet first goal on his first ever shot that showed the kind of offensive skill the guy had. I don’t remember if it was an injury crisis in 2014/15 that kept him up, but he got 34 games that season and (despite the low point totals) he was averaging around 17 minutes a game. Of course that was under Johnston and a more conservative system (he was up in Dec to April before going back down to WBS). That D corps was pretty bad too. But when he was getting decent minutes at age 20 I assumed it was only a matter of time before everything would round out.
I don’t remember much overall from that season but I definitely remember that the team looked like trash the second half of the season and backed into the playoffs. Then the next year he got 22 games, then 11. And yeah, those stints I remember as him being mistake prone and unremarkable. Then the next year Dumo broke into the team and surpassed him. I remember 2 games in the playoffs for DP that were....not good.
It sucks, I have no animus toward the guy and still want him to make it as an NHLer. But to come in as a 20 year old with the hype, shown a little of that skill, and just never develop the well rounded game to compliment his offensive ability, well, yeah that was sad. And I’m glad the whole “will he or won’t he” time with him is over for the Pens.
