The idea of a Blackhawks’ fan advising that the Wings should willingly submit to temporary mediocrity for the sake of future improvement doesn't sit well with me. So I'll submit a few thoughts in a first post, one too long and probably not popular.
The issue of when to give young players a roster spot is obviously a hot topic. It always has been. I've been following the Red Wings for more than half a century, and through all the draft successes and failures and player development plans, the one thing that has stood out as the biggest mistake a team can make (other than to have crappy drafts for about five years) is to grant a young player too much NHL ice time before he is ready. It's a mistake for the player and it's a mistake for his NHL teammates. There is no guarantee the player will develop and, if you’re wrong, the impact is felt for much more than one season. It affects the player’s value, in your eyes and those of other teams in the league, it affects teammates' performance, it puts pressure on the team to do something to compensate for the mistake, it unnecessarily increases payroll, it may cost a coach his job. We can debate whether or not a young player who fails and becomes a lost draft pick might have succeeded if more time had been spent in Junior or the Minors, but there is no debate about players who never made it because they spent too long in the Minors. If they’re good enough (in all respects: mentally, physically and emotionally), and healthy enough, they’ll make it. Playing them too soon invites all sort of negative consequences and very rarely any positive consequences.
Of course, the evaluation of a player’s preparedness for the top level is a subjective art, not a science. And like all arts there is plenty of room for different opinions, even at the highest level. A player on Team A may be judged ready, the same player on Team B may not be. Both teams may be right. The proof is generally in the pudding. If a team makes misjudgments, the cost of that will eventually become obvious. There is nothing obvious in the Wings' performance last year to attribute player development as a negative. In fact, the opposite is a more logical evaluation. In my opinion the only obvious mistake the Wings have made in personnel evaluations in recent years was with Kyle Quincey. They undervalued him as a prospect and overvalued him as a veteran, and paid the price twice. I can't think of a player on another team I wish the Wings had kept (maybe Shawn Matthias) rather than the player acquired. I think you can rationally defend just about every other player move, at least until the recent signing of Cleary. I really don’t believe that is in the Wings' best interests but I will hold out hope that his shift responsibilities eventually evolve into providing popcorn to bloggers in the press box.
In my view the Wings played last year's development process perfectly. There was no way that team was going to make the playoffs without a full commitment to defensive hockey, and anything less than a full push to make the playoffs would have been contrary to what every decent team tries to do. The lockout and compressed schedule last year created a unique situation. Limited training camp, reduced practice time, less time for teaching, injuries were assured. If you do not start with a roster full of players willing and capable of buying into the style required to make the playoffs in a season with little margin for error, then you are creating a losing scenario. A spot in the pressbox is not going to attract any veteran free agent, so right off the bat you are signing veteran dregs with no track record of success. Before long you are hitting the waiver wire for bottom sixers or making mistakes with other young players. Having a deep roster, including a capable guy or two in Grand Rapids, was the most sensible way to approach the compressed season. I don't really care that other teams found ways to get young players into their lineups. Team circumstances differ. Chicago, for example, had plenty of room for error. In most cases, the young players mentioned on other teams as examples of what the Wings should be doing are clearly superior prospects or have better NHL capability now than the best Detroit prospects. The Saads, Leddys, Etems, etc are just flat out better young NHL players than Tatar, Nyquist and Smith. Further to Saad and Leddy, in the playoffs they were the Hawks I was least concerned about. Great skaters, but to little effect and the rest of their game was AHL level. Bickell was a beast and guess what, he was a prospect the Hawks have shown great patience with. They didn't rush him, or had the sense to abort a couple of premature promotions, they kept sending him down, and he finally figured out how to contribute. The wait was well worth it. Perhaps the Wings rushed Abdelkader because, at least in the AHL, he was a much more productive player than Bickell. Perhaps promoting him to the NHL as a useful young grinder actually hindered his confidence with the puck and obliterated an offensive mindset that, in my most optimistic outlook, will start to reassert itself this season. It's well worth a look to start the season with him on the top line.
As for the Wings top prospects, the only one I think is elite is Mrazek. He needs to start this season in the AHL, playing full time. If Howard is injured I would expect Mrazek to come up and be the starter and do a great job. I love Nyquist, but unless he develops a much better shot and an aggressive offensive mentality he'll never be the top six elite winger everyone hopes he might become. He certainly isn't right now. He's going into just his third professional season, so he still has plenty of time to learn. He gained more in my view from being part of two playoff runs than he would have by the Wings sacrificing this past season's playoff chances by dressing three midget rookies in their top nine from day one. Tatar finally learned how to elevate his game in the proper environment. Smith showed me nothing last year to suggest he should have been in the NHL, on a full time basis, even earlier. Those three will all get 70 to 80 NHL games this year, plus playoffs, and the only thing preventing them being good contributors is their own limitations, or a trade. I do understand that rationalizing players' failures is common practice for fans, but you'll find very few retired NHLers who had long careers complaining about how they were developed or their ice time. If there were injustices, and of course there were for some players, they are viewed as events that motivated them to get better, to prove someone wrong. The big picture of how good they eventually became is seen as almost entirely a product of their own ability and whatever luck they had, good or bad, with injuries.
Sorry to go on a bit of rant. It wasn't really my intent to do so on my first post and what I should have done, at the start of this, is thank posters for making this such an informative and entertaining site for me to read over the past year or so. I've been a Wings fan during some dark times and this era is not one of them. They're set in goal, young on defense and likely to get better, they have a couple of game breakers and they will be a more physical team this year with Alfredsson and Weiss in the top six. There is a great mix of prospects in the pipeline and they have enough of them to acquire a solid veteran defenceman (Andy Greene would be a great partner for Smith or Kindl) or even a good young one (Karl Alzner, likewise) and the cap picture next year should allow them to make a major acquisition (Vanek or Ryan O'Reilly would be nice). This current cap trouble I’m sure will pass in what will prove to be mundane circumstances (yes, I would consider Nyquist spending a few weeks in the AHL to be mundane). I promise to make shorter submissions in the future.
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