Much tougher to have a spot on Buffalo? They were a very bad team before season 2005-2006 you can't argue with that.
The depth came this season with all the young guns (pominville,roy,vanek,gaustad). And if you say depth with San Jose you say it rain when it's sunny. Si if you didn't talk about Zherdev and Nilsson i'm right about their difference with AK. And when i said competition , I was talking of the number of spots for prospects available versus the number of prospect competing for it. When I said Higgins, Plekanec, Perezhogin( I could add Latendresse), i was talking about who he had to fight in training camp. Michalek, Zherdev had none, Vanek, Pominville, Gaustad,Roy had all a spots for them cuz there was NO depth in Buffalo at that time. I was not saying it was related to his playing time when he was call-up. He was not call-up to have a regular spot on the 2 top line( he saw some action on it tough) that's why he didn't get a lot of ice time. My point was that he still manage to had a good production for the ice time he got, he just not had enough time to get Michalek or Nilsson production taht got them so much respect from Trent.
AK didn't had the right place at the right time factor taht got Michalek, Vanek etc.. Having to fight other prospect more experience then him and in a team that you can't steal the spot of veterans, even the not very good ones. (Dagenais had a spot on the 2nd line at the beginning of the season and you can't argue taht Latendresse and AK were better then him.