I can’t wrap my head around McD being behind the Boqvist call up. It just doesn’t make sense. Vetoing a big trade is one thing. But ordering the call up of a mildly known (outside of hardcore fans) prospect? That’s micro-managing. I don’t doubt Zawaski’s source. But I don’t understand.
I can't say if McD (or anybody) was right or wrong with prospect development, I'm just trying to make sense of why he would contradict the gm who was probably listening to the hockey people. Here it goes:
MCD was there with watching early returns on arguably an early call up with several players including but not limited to Bolland, Hjalmarsson, Buff, etc. Keith and Seabs wouldn't have had the minutes they had early in their career if Tallon wasn't building such a mess coming out of the lockout. There were lots of questions about Toews being able to jump to the NHL in year 1 successfully too.
Kruger, Leddy, Saad, Shaw,...
Most of those players had bigger responsibility than they probably should have under normal circumstances. If McD pushed to plug young guys in, it may have been because he was applying the flukish results of the past to the current prospects. Lots of people were screaming to bring up more talent and let them get minutes for years. Plenty of other examples.
Anyway, not hard to see why an egomaniac, with a philosophy of "win now" would overrule staff for call ups of high end type prospects. McD makes the calls and then Bowman would deal with the lost year later.