KuleminFan41
Registered User
- Jan 5, 2009
- 5,845
- 614
You are saying its Babcock's fault, or else you wouldn't be criticizing him for not developing defensemen despite Detroit not having a great track record of drafting and developing defensemen before ,during and after him. That's why I said your post is entirely irrational because you're blatantly ignoring that management is the one who not only draft these players, but also sign and trade for players. Sure, he may give his input, but the fact remains, he can only ice the players he's given to work with. My point stands, Detroit hardly drafted great defensemen apart from Kronwall in 2000 and Lidstrom in 89, which is 10 years apart. That's on Detroit, not Babcock so stop with the ridiculous complaints about not developing top 4 defensemen.I'm not saying it's Babcock's fault he only developed 2 passable top-4 D in 20 years, I'm saying he doesn't have much experience developing young D.
Other teams do. Teams successful at developing young D take almost the same approach without fail: let the guy play real minutes and send him down if it's clear he isn't ready.
It's insane to suggest that the guy with minimal experience developing D is smarter than the rest of the league and forcing guys like Dermott and Sandin to play hilariously sheltered low minutes is better than what successful teams do.
If the priority is trying to win games in October, send Sandin down and bring up someone safe and physical to play those easy 10 minutes. If the priority is to develop Sandin, play him in real minutes or send him down.
Oh, another thing I forgot to mention. Morgan Rielly was 5th in ice time in the 13-14 season with 17:37 and 14-15 season with 20:20 average ice time . Under Babcock in the 15-16 season, Rielly jumped to 23:14, nearly 3 full minute increase making him the #1 defensemen on the Leafs and he has been #1 during all but 1 season under Babcock . But yes, he has little to no barring on Rielly's development clearly....