1) How on earth would you know (or presume to know?) which pairing Hersley plays on?
2) Yes. I'm upset over any prospect that we draft and then give up too quickly upon.....especially if that prospect is a right-shooting defenseman with size. He's a late-bloomer, and our scouting and development staff should have recognized that fact and treated him accordingly. That's what those guys get paid to do.
By minutes played/game, Hersley was the 6th, borderline 7th, d-man last year. By hits, he was lowest amongst regular d-men, with the next guy doubling him up. By points, he was 6th. Etc. Before that, he was doing next to nothing, save one 33-pt campaign, I guess.
I'm glad he's having a hot start, but at some point, you have to ask yourself why he left North America a decade ago and hasn't been brought back by ANY team. The guy showed nothing at the AHL level, and finally started scoring at the ECHL level, then left. Maybe a comparable guy is when we brought over Chris Lee for a PTO and he didn't even stick. This is a whole hell of a lot of hand-wringing over a 5th round pick that never demonstrated anything here. In fact, there's nothing really to demonstrate he's not just soaking up points on a superteam.
Why were you not upset about this for the entire last decade?
He couldn't even crack our AHL roster and at some point you have to cut bait. Scouting and development can't save everyone.