Is the Jets Development side broken?

[Bob E]

What this team is doing makes no sense to me whatsoever. They had 2 real options this summer

1. Commit to a youth movement and year of development: that involves sticking with your talented rookies through thick and thin. Letting them play and taking your lumps that come with their learning curve.

2. Being a real playoff contender this year: that involved signing some veterans that are actually talented and maybe adding 1 rookie but having the depth to shelter him and remain competitive.

Instead what the Jets have chosen to do is to fill 3 forward spots with rookies, shelter 1, continuously take 1 in and out of the line up for a guy who has 11 career points in 115 career games, and yo-yo 1 rookies minutes down to 4-5 with no special teams minutes, when the aforementioned rookie comes out for the aforementioned lunkhead.

So your not letting 2 of these guys really develop but you don't have any NHL level talent to replace them to be a playoff contender. What are you trying to accomplish?

Sure taking their time in deciding which way to go - committing to a young core, or relying on the old core with young players sprinkled in.

Problem with going too much with a young core, they likely feel there isn't enough veteran leadership to guide the young players until they are top contributors. Too much of old core, your core is aging and likely declining in ability and they are more expensive.

It's like they fear, the moment we sign out older players, the young players will exceed their contributions. But if we don't sign our older core, our young players won't develop properly.

 

[Mortimer Snerd]

Josh Morrissey (13th overall) and Joel Armia (16th overall) say hello...

And I don't buy the "Top 15 picks don't need time in the A" stuff - Top 5 picks maybe.

Most guys picked 6-15 spend some time in the AHL. Some guys can make the jump, but a lot can't - or shouldn't. Some of the guys who do move right into the NHL played pro in Europe.

I imagine it's pretty rare to see two guys with 1 game of pro experience between them to be NHL linemates...not what I'd call a 'position to succeed'...

My mistake on Josh and Joe. Doesn't affect the point though.

Top 5 picks frequently make the NHL right out of the draft or after 1 more year of junior. 6 to 15 frequently make the NHL the year after finishing junior. Not always but frequently. They may or may not spend some time in the AHL that year. Not so much because they need seasoning as because they are waiting for a vacancy to open up.

I see no reason to believe that Scheifele or Trouba needed AHL time. Lowry, Chiarot and Hutch got AHL time. Ehlers doesn't need it. Copp did his further development in the NCAA and doesn't show signs of needing the A. Petan may need it or at least needs a better situation. He will probably spend some time there this season. My guess is that if he doesn't soon take off he will go down when Raffl is ready to play.

If some of our other prospects leave the NCAA they may join the Moose. If they stay long enough in NCAA they may not need AHLtime either. That is hard to call at this time.

The point is that most of the prospects that have spent any amount of time in the A were later picks who never had high % chances of making the NHL to begin with. Failing to make silk purses out of sows ears is not an indictment of our AHL development system.

 

[Grind]

It's especially odd given how specific comments were made to the effect that Atlanta did not give their prospects due time to develop. I guess letting a guy play junior to 20 and then putting him up in the NHL is the counter to that? I had assumed that meant they'd want guys to start in the AHL and the exception would be guys who made the jump immediately. Our only 1st rounder who hasn't is Morrissey.

This is an imaginary thing based on small sample size more than anything else. What you are describing is perfectly normal. Top 15 (more or less) picks don't need time in the A. Copp chose to stay in NCAA. We are talking 1 player here. If Petan gets sent down which it is looking more and more like he should, he will be the highest drafted player McCambridge has had the opportunity to work with.

Exactly.

What's the issue here?

Of our "high end" prospects, 3/7 had to go to the AHL (helley, Comrie, Morrisey), none of the 4 (Scheif,Trouba,Ehlers,petan) has struggled coming straight through to the NHL (ok well, petan seems to be so you could maybe mark that one up)

Players need generally 2 years post draft before they even can get to the AHL(contractually). we've only been drafting for 5 years. When you do the math, that's only what, 2 crops of draft picks that have had a chance to even go to the AHL.

Also keep in mind, just because you played in the AHL doesn't mean your "more mature" or a "more seasoned Player". Copp skipped the AHL but still didn't play in the NHL until his DY+4 season. Meanwhile plenty of players play in the NHL in their DY+2 or +3 season while having spent time in the AHL (ex: if de leo makes the roster next year [not saying its likely] will he be proof of developing "the right way" having made NHL in his DY+3 season?).

Essentially being upset that we haven't forced guys to play in the A or haven't graduated any from the A is ridiculous at this point. We've only had 2 draft years be old enough to qualify for playing 1 full season in the AHL at this point. Of which we've already graduated one from (Lowry).

Except the only time he plays east - west in the offensive zone, where east - west means cutting through the scoring zone exactly like the big point getters do. The kid plays a type of game that will produce a lot of points one day.

Totally agree. I really feel people get uppidy and concerned about ehlers "east west" the same way they do his "he's not great defensively"...which is they only notice it because they are really looking for it. Honestly, if ehlers was a 23 yearold name Doug MacKenzie no one would likely be complaining about either of these things. He's young, He's european, and he's Fast as all hell. People always seem to assume if you are any of those three things, your probably bad defensively or playing "the wrong way".

 

[Gm0ney]

My mistake on Josh and Joe. Doesn't affect the point though.

Top 5 picks frequently make the NHL right out of the draft or after 1 more year of junior. 6 to 15 frequently make the NHL the year after finishing junior. Not always but frequently. They may or may not spend some time in the AHL that year. Not so much because they need seasoning as because they are waiting for a vacancy to open up.

I see no reason to believe that Scheifele or Trouba needed AHL time. Lowry, Chiarot and Hutch got AHL time. Ehlers doesn't need it. Copp did his further development in the NCAA and doesn't show signs of needing the A. Petan may need it or at least needs a better situation. He will probably spend some time there this season. My guess is that if he doesn't soon take off he will go down when Raffl is ready to play.

If some of our other prospects leave the NCAA they may join the Moose. If they stay long enough in NCAA they may not need AHLtime either. That is hard to call at this time.

The point is that most of the prospects that have spent any amount of time in the A were later picks who never had high % chances of making the NHL to begin with. Failing to make silk purses out of sows ears is not an indictment of our AHL development system.

Well mcpw did the math there - it's about 50-50 for non-busts drafted from 6-15 to get significant AHL time. It's sure not a given that these guys will skip the A.

And I don't know about the notion that guys could/should be in the NHL but there just aren't open slots - and I think that's the situation we're in now. We gifted Copp, Petan and Ehlers spots before they had played the pro game. Petan's been playing against 16-17 year olds in the W. Same with Ehlers in the Q. Copp's been playing an older cohort in NCAA but it's still not pro hockey vs. men.

When teams do bring a guy in straight from junior or NCAA, they usually try to put them in a position to succeed. Sticking Petan on the 4th isn't accomplishing that.

What would Ehlers look like on the 4th getting 6 minutes a night? Why are we putting Petan in a position to fail? Is this helping his development?

Copp, I don't know...maybe for him it's been okay to start on the 4th beside Thorburn and a 5'9" dude who's never played pro - but I can't help but wonder if he wouldn't have been better served by starting in the A.

I don't mean that these guys have to stay in the AHL for a full season. Just let them wade into the pro game instead of throwing them right into the deep end and seeing what happens.

 

[Grind]

the only player that so far appears to be hindered by this or "should have" been put int he A is petan.

Copps not beating down doors but he's playing pretty well ok as a 4th line C, and i don't think anyones ever really expected him to be more than that.

Ehlers has been fine.

Scheif was fine his first year.

trouba was fine his first year.

I"m just not sure why we're calling these issues if the players have been succeeding in their roles.

Even the "gifting" of spots. if the guy still succeeds in that spot (Trouba, Ehlers, Lowry) I don't think is it a sign of "gifting" or having a really good handle on wether the player was actually ready?

edit: i'd also argue that petan actually did have some decent competition for that 4th line spot in training camp from Raffle, Armia, and Lipon.

 

[veganhunter]

Sure taking their time in deciding which way to go - committing to a young core, or relying on the old core with young players sprinkled in.

Problem with going too much with a young core, they likely feel there isn't enough veteran leadership to guide the young players until they are top contributors. Too much of old core, your core is aging and likely declining in ability and they are more expensive.

It's like they fear, the moment we sign out older players, the young players will exceed their contributions. But if we don't sign our older core, our young players won't develop properly.

That (development issues) or they are desperate to remain a competitive playoff team while adding young talent. I'm not going to say that it absolutely won't work but it sure is a lot easier when your adding players to a core of Toews, Kane, Keith, Seabrook or Kopitar, Carter, Doughty or Zetterberg, Datsyuk, Kronwall or Crosby, Malkin, Letang.

Certainly Ladd, Little, Wheeler, Enstrom are good players but I don't think they have the skill to carry a team with a bunch of struggling youngsters.

 

[Grind]

That (development issues) or they are desperate to remain a competitive playoff team while adding young talent. I'm not going to say that it absolutely won't work but it sure is a lot easier when your adding players to a core of Toews, Kane, Keith, Seabrook or Kopitar, Carter, Doughty or Zetterberg, Datsyuk, Kronwall or Crosby, Malkin, Letang.

Certainly Ladd, Little, Wheeler, Enstrom are good players but I don't think they have the skill to carry a team with a bunch of struggling youngsters.

our best players have routinely performed as top 20 players in their positions, many in the top 15.

The problem with our team has forever been our managements ability to provide them a with a suitable supporting cast.

last year we did that and we were succesfull.

this year we hoped youth would do it and so far haven't been so succesfull.

I believe the goal is that even if the youth isn't succefull at being the supporting cast this year, the sacrifice of it will allow them to be succesfull for the next 4-5 years.

the problem being at this point you start running out of those core players.

Either way, they aren't the problem. As PS pointed out somehwere esle if were talking about actual improvement, our youth is only an improvement as long as our core player remain here. otherwise we're crossing our fingers that they are good enough to be replacements for them, which in turn puts us back in the exact same spot we started in: a decent enough "high end" core but a complete lack of support.

 

[Mortimer Snerd]

I looked at the nonrepresentative sample of 6-15 picks from 2006-2009 - skaters, >100 NHL GP.

>=40 AHL GP (17 players)
D.Brassard, B.Little, J.Tlusty, M.Grabner, L.Couture, K.Ellerby, B.Sutter, L.Eller, C.Wilson, M.Boedker, C.Hodgson, Z.Boychuk, N.Kadri, M.Paajarvi, R.Ellis, C.deHaan, P.Holland

<40 AHL GP (15 players)
K.Okposo, P.Mueller, J.Sheppard, M.Frolik, S.Gagner, J.Voracek, R.McDonagh, K.Shattenkirk, J.Bailey, T.Myers, E.Karlsson, O.Ekman-Larsson, J.Cowen, Z.Kassian, D.Kulikov

(best players bolded). "Forced" shortened season AHL games didn't count. Looks like a completely mixed bag to me.

Close enough for my intent. A lot of those would be ready for the NHL but have to find a vacancy, get injury callups, etc. On second thought, I guess it would depend on just how far over 40 that group went. How many would be over, say 70 (just pulling a cutoff number out of the air)?

 

[Mortimer Snerd]

Well mcpw did the math there - it's about 50-50 for non-busts drafted from 6-15 to get significant AHL time. It's sure not a given that these guys will skip the A.

And I don't know about the notion that guys could/should be in the NHL but there just aren't open slots - and I think that's the situation we're in now. We gifted Copp, Petan and Ehlers spots before they had played the pro game. Petan's been playing against 16-17 year olds in the W. Same with Ehlers in the Q. Copp's been playing an older cohort in NCAA but it's still not pro hockey vs. men.

When teams do bring a guy in straight from junior or NCAA, they usually try to put them in a position to succeed. Sticking Petan on the 4th isn't accomplishing that.

What would Ehlers look like on the 4th getting 6 minutes a night? Why are we putting Petan in a position to fail? Is this helping his development?

Copp, I don't know...maybe for him it's been okay to start on the 4th beside Thorburn and a 5'9" dude who's never played pro - but I can't help but wonder if he wouldn't have been better served by starting in the A.

I don't mean that these guys have to stay in the AHL for a full season. Just let them wade into the pro game instead of throwing them right into the deep end and seeing what happens.

Before I even finish reading, the bold is misleading. There are not a lot of 16 YO's in the W. Most are 17, 18, 19 some are 16 and some are 20. The NCAA is not made up entirely of 21, 22 YO's either. They range from 18 - 22. The best go to the NHL at 19 or 20 so the 21 & 22 YO's that are left are of a little lower calibre.

Definitely agree with the second bold.

I don't have any problem with Copp where he is. He is getting NHL coaching. He is practicing with NHL players every day. He seems to be handling his role very well and to my eye is improving. I think that is the key to whether this is working or not. Petan is not improving. In fact he may be going the wrong way. I'm not 100% ready to give up on the experiment yet but if he doesn't start to perform better in a few more games I would send him down. We have other options for the 4th line and I don't mean Peluso.

 

[Koonta]

I knew there was a reason I avoided this board for awhile during this recent skid of the team. Reactionary/premature thread.

 

[KingBogo]

our best players have routinely performed as top 20 players in their positions, many in the top 15.

The problem with our team has forever been our managements ability to provide them a with a suitable supporting cast.

last year we did that and we were succesfull.

this year we hoped youth would do it and so far haven't been so succesfull.

I believe the goal is that even if the youth isn't succefull at being the supporting cast this year, the sacrifice of it will allow them to be succesfull for the next 4-5 years.

the problem being at this point you start running out of those core players.

Either way, they aren't the problem. As PS pointed out somehwere esle if were talking about actual improvement, our youth is only an improvement as long as our core player remain here. otherwise we're crossing our fingers that they are good enough to be replacements for them, which in turn puts us back in the exact same spot we started in: a decent enough "high end" core but a complete lack of support.

I think what you are describing Grind is a good bubble team not a championship caliber team. Having your top players in the top 20 in their positions doesn't cut it to win a cup. Players of that caliber need to be the top of the supporting cast. The Hawks have won multiple cups because they have those type of players (Hossa, Sharp, Seabrook) supporting elite players that are driving the bus (Toews, Kane, Keith). Similar case can be made for the Kings. Or any Cup winning team for that matter, except for the very rare miracle run that happens every generation or so.

The Jets are created to be also runs unless we are able to draft and develop elite level players and a strong supporting cast for them. If all we can do is find a supporting cast for top support players, the best we can realistically hope for is to make the playoffs occasionally. Never really contend unless we happen to be that rare team that catches lightning in a bottle.

 

[heilongjetsfan]

...snip...

Totally agree. I really feel people get uppidy and concerned about ehlers "east west" the same way they do his "he's not great defensively"...which is they only notice it because they are really looking for it. Honestly, if ehlers was a 23 yearold name Doug MacKenzie no one would likely be complaining about either of these things. He's young, He's european, and he's Fast as all hell. People always seem to assume if you are any of those three things, your probably bad defensively or playing "the wrong way".

I totally agree with your total agreement. I don't get to see as many games as I'd like. Being on China time kinda screws with that. Friday/Saturday night games are out for me altogether, and the other nights, I often have things to do, but one thing I've noticed about Ehlers is he's usually one of the first guys back every time he's on the ice. He uses his speed to get on pucks that have been dumped, and to even up odd-man rushes that he generally couldn't be blamed for causing. It's been more than once in this young season that I've seen an opposing team not be able to make a line change because he gets the puck too quickly, and that will create advantages that are hard to quantify.

I think anyone who has any complaints about Ehlers is someone who just decided he's a certain kind of player. He's a superstar in the making and he wants to make an impact in all 3 zones.

 

[Grind]

I think what you are describing Grind is a good bubble team not a championship caliber team. Having your top players in the top 20 in their positions doesn't cut it to win a cup. Players of that caliber need to be the top of the supporting cast. The Hawks have won multiple cups because they have those type of players (Hossa, Sharp, Seabrook) supporting elite players that are driving the bus (Toews, Kane, Keith). Similar case can be made for the Kings. Or any Cup winning team for that matter, except for the very rare miracle run that happens every generation or so.

The Jets are created to be also runs unless we are able to draft and develop elite level players and a strong supporting cast for them. If all we can do is find a supporting cast for top support players, the best we can realistically hope for is to make the playoffs occasionally. Never really contend unless we happen to be that rare team that catches lightning in a bottle.

I think that's fair. I mostly meant we seem to glorify our "window" as being when Ehlers, Scheifele, ETC, become players of a similar level as Wheeler, Little, Etc.

I'd argue Buff is an elite dman or at least has been for most of the last few years.

The same issue boils down, our timing is off. Unless were bringin in outside help its unlikely the Ladd/Little/Wheeler era of the Jets is every a contender (note contender, not Competitive).

We're tracking to be competitive (Hopefully? this year might be that step back) while they age out, unfortunately that means we will again need the same amount of replacements to come in to maintain that status while they regress.

If Ehlers, scheifele, and trouba are tracking to replace little, wheeler, and Byfuglien (probably our three strongest players of the "old" core) we still need people to phase out Ladd, scheifele, ehlers, and trouba (their "old" spots). Essentially despite how good the future looks, we probably only have HALF of the job done, if that.

I think that's what PS had been getting at and I firmly agree. Even if we pie in the sky say Roslovic, Connor, Morrisey, petan and armia can fill those spots, we're still only where we started.

We need to either start drafting a lot more high end players (which really only comes from moving out that older core for picks) or bring in more depth from FA/trades.

I totally agree with your total agreement. I don't get to see as many games as I'd like. Being on China time kinda screws with that. Friday/Saturday night games are out for me altogether, and the other nights, I often have things to do, but one thing I've noticed about Ehlers is he's usually one of the first guys back every time he's on the ice. He uses his speed to get on pucks that have been dumped, and to even up odd-man rushes that he generally couldn't be blamed for causing. It's been more than once in this young season that I've seen an opposing team not be able to make a line change because he gets the puck too quickly, and that will create advantages that are hard to quantify.

I think anyone who has any complaints about Ehlers is someone who just decided he's a certain kind of player. He's a superstar in the making and he wants to make an impact in all 3 zones.

Yah that sounds about right. Kind of OT here but there hasn't been much about Ehlers game that has left me wanting. The only East West i see is when he's burning down the wing and cuts to the middle of the ice to get a shot or when he walks out in front into the slot...honestly these are the exact things people complained about Evander Kane NOT doing so I don't get where it comes from...