You may think he got more opportunity, but that is wrong. How many NHL games did Stanley have when he was Heinola’s age?
Less about age than the opportunities each has had relative to where they were in their development curve, IMO.
Stanley played 4 years in juniors. In his D5 he played 37 games for the Jets, including several good stretches where he could put into practice wht he was learning and settle his game. He was also sheltered to a remarkable degree in terms of zone starts and matchups.
Quite different from the spot duty and yo-yoing between NHL and AHL we’ve seen so far with Ville, and I don’t expect to see him playing anywhere close to 37 games in his D5; of course the options aren’t really there with the current corps and setup.
Plenty of interesting discussions to be had about Stan and the Jets D dev strategies more generally, but I think it’s hard to make the case that Stan has lacked opportunity in terms of reps, leash and sheltering.
I don’t expect either to be here for long, and if either makes good it’d likely to be in another uniform. I’d bet on Salmo to be the next regular on the Jets D, with Chisholm likely a 6/7 if he follows Sambergs lead and cultivates a low-error steady game.
And in the meantime we’ll pay Schmidt / Pionk 24 mill or so.