The Sun: Leafs' Matt Frattin will be better second time around

[jmart21]

Let's see what Phil does with 6 minutes of ice time per game. I'm thinking not a whole lot.

I'm thinking the opposite. I'm thinking Phil Kessel playing 6 mins has the fanbase crying "why aren't you playing 25mins!???!!!"

That's because he's a good player.

Sometimes you need more minutes and opportunities. It's silly to argue that if you get 6 minutes of ice time, you should only be moved up to more if the coach likes your play. What are you basing it on? It fully depends on your role on the team. First lines play a lot of minutes and score a lot of points. You don't see them playing 6 minutes for the reason of they won't produce. If you were basing pleasing the coach on scoring, Frattin isn't going to score much with that ice time. When you don't get a lot of time on the ice, opportunities dont present themselves very often. Unless your have insane talent would players be able to score off 6 minutes of ice time. That's roughly 6-7 shifts a game.......

You don't need to be playing with top 6 players for 15+mins a night to go out and do things your coach wants to see. Points are irrelevant in this debate.

Ex; you don't need to be playing with Lupul and Kadri to show that you don't go half-assed on the backcheck, or that you try and make a play when you get the puck etc. etc.

The coach doesn't just look at point totals and go from there. Anyone who's played hockey under a decent coach knows that the coaching staff notices all the little things each time you come back to the bench. You can't honestly think that in 10+ shifts during a game, your coach can't see if you're doing things "right" or doing things "wrong".

 

[Stephen]

I'm not missing anything. You play a guy with utter plugs for 6-8 minutes and, in all likelihood, he will show you very little and probably be sunk by the trash he's playing with. That's not basis upon which to judge his NHL potential.

Give a guy 15-20 games with reasonably decent NHLers and see what he gives. Until then, you've got very little basis to make any determination about his ability to live up to his junior and minor potential.

Nobody is going to give a guy like Frattin Joe Thornton minutes to see what he's got. If you're playing 6-8 minutes a night with plugs and getting nothing done, you're probably a plug yourself.