Pre-Game Talk: Training Camp 2022/23

[FonRiesen]

Because he can be stapled to the press box and nobody will give a f***. Same can go for Stanley.

I'm hoping that snerg being kept means he'll be in the lineup, or at least some sort of rotation with Stanley

Realistically, our D coming into camp was:
Jomo Demelo
Dillon Schmidt
XXX pionk

You had Stanley, Samberg and Heinola competing for that last spot. As others have mentionned, PK is a requirement for whoever is gonna fill it. Someone had to be sent to the moose. Can't be Stanley, he needs waivers. That leaves heinola or Samberg. Samberg is older, bigger, and farther along in his development.

I would *love* to have seen rotations of D men last year - especially during the tight schedules we've had in the past couple of years. If we're playing 3 games per week, for a younger D playing every other game would be ideal, IMO. Gives him time to analyze his game and reflect, and you can develop 2 assets at once with less impact. On a b2b we could use more player rotations for better fitness/lower chance of injuries (though I still think travelling b2b's should be removed - too hard on the players...).

 

[Imcanadianeh]

Excellent post and well said. I find this org tends to be much better at developing and deploying forwards then it does Dmen. Yes you have the odd Petan/Roslovic situation but by and large we churn out very good skilled players and enough solid depth players.

On defense in 12 years we have graduated two good dmen in JoMo and Trouba. Outside of that we've had a sig ificant issue developing and integrating dmen.

True but the Jets have only drafted four defenseman in the first round, only one in top 10 (Trouba), one in the middle (Morrissey) and two of them in the bottom half of the draft (Stanley, Heinola)

They’ve only drafted 8 defenseman in the first two rounds and it’s looking like Trouba, Morrissey, Stanley, Heinola and Samberg are NHL caliber defenseman.

I’d say at this point it’s hard to say if Lundmark and Salomonsson make the NHL or not, the real only for sure strikeout they had in the first two rounds was Sutter.

 

[LowLefty]

(warning: long essay - only the first paragraph is really a response to you, @KFnC204 - but then it got my brain thinking about this whole thread, and I decided to outline my perception of our current context since I haven't chimed in on this thread. Apologies for long-windedness in advance!)

Some people use historical data, evaluate what could have been improved based on hindsight, and then make better decisions in the present. Other people are doomed to repeat past mistakes if they haven't understood what went wrong.

In Petan's case, it is an oversimplification to say he was too small, not tough enough, etc - those things were sort of true, but not the whole picture. Evaluating what actually happened on the ice, we could see that there was a situation in which Petan excelled. However, that situation did not fit into Maurice's preconceived notions of his deployment strategy. Instead of changing to a top 9/bottom 3 approach (once or twice we had the personnel to do it, but he never tried), he stuck with his top 6/checking/scrubs deployment, and Petan (as a playmaker) absolutely sucked.

(there were also non-hockey factors that disrupted Petan's development at key times, like losing his dad... Hard to quantify that effect).

The org made the correct decision to cut him loose because they chose not to change their deployment strategy. Personally, I'm more a fan of evaluating what pieces you actually have, and then finding a way to maximize their talents. Maurice was not capable of that, it requires cognitive functions that most extraverted former players have as blind spots (because you have to be awesome in the moment to make it as a player).

Why does this matter? Well, in this thread, some of us are seeing a similar trend - one option is to not play Heinola and disrupt development (and its bullshit to say that the NHL is not a development league - every player keeps developing or ends their career: just heard Jagr say in an interview about how he continually was learning to adjust his game to his abilities). The other option is to reevaluate deployment.

The tricky thing with Heinola is we're dealing with contract status (waiver exemption) and some handedness issues, and only one spot. What coaches struggle to grasp (yes, even some NHL coaches) is that to achieve maximum potential you have to sacrifice some present results (and we're only talking short term: like suffer for 2 weeks and reap the bonus benefits for an extra 6-24 months).

Things also changed for me when we signed Dillon and Schmidt. I was 100% in favour of playing Heinola instead of Beaulieu or Poolman or Bitetto or Sbisa. But Dillon is probably the best 3rd pairing quality D we've had and Schmidt is getting paid a tonne to be just a little bit better than Heinola (but I think Schmidt's good enough to not benefit from the short term sacrifices we'd have to make to play Heinola fulltime). So that puts us in an awkward spot.

So, just like we should have either changed our deployment or traded Petan, I'd like to see us get something for our assets. Getting Schmidt in particular basically made Heinola redundant - so in my eyes one of them should be traded, or we get nothing for H's 1st round pick.

In hindsight, it's clear Chevy was going all out to win last year, to please Maurice got semi-established D's, and the team crashed. It would have been better to play Heinola fulltime and rotate Samberg & Stanley last year - we would have had the same result or a better draft pick, and we'd be miles ahead right now.

Personally, I think we should always have one or two rookies playing to constantly refresh our team - but again, what we learned from Petan, that requires an intentional deployment taking into account our actual roster instead of a cookie-cutter template that worked in the 80's.

I like the work you put into this post - thoughtful and civil.
And I agree with some of it - but more importantly, I like how you presented it.

 

[DRW204]

all this talk about 3rd pair lhd, meanwhile

dillon-pionk is our 2nd pair again

Hoping better this time around

I wonder how rigid Bowness and co will be with d pairs

 

[surixon]

True but the Jets have only drafted four defenseman in the first round, only one in top 10 (Trouba), one in the middle (Morrissey) and two of them in the bottom half of the draft (Stanley, Heinola)

They’ve only drafted 8 defenseman in the first two rounds and it’s looking like Trouba, Morrissey, Stanley, Heinola and Samberg are NHL caliber defenseman.

I’d say at this point it’s hard to say if Lundmark and Salomonsson make the NHL or not, the real only for sure strikeout they had in the first two rounds was Sutter.

Sure a number look promising but the second point is integration. They haven't shown the ability to properly integrate a good dmen since JoMo. It looks like we are going to have to wait and see if Heinola/Samberg get a run of games this year.

 

[Romang67]

Sure as hell hope that Bowness's style of play for the team has different results than Maurice's, because Dillon-Pionk and Stanley-Schmidt will fast track us out of the playoff race otherwise.

And if they do, there is no real excuse. We're going in to this season with arguably the worst 2nd pairing and the worst 3rd pairing of all healthy pairings last season.

 

[surixon]

Sure as hell hope that Bowness's style of play for the team has different results than Maurice's, because Dillon-Pionk and Stanley-Schmidt will fast track us out of the playoff race otherwise.

And if they do, there is no real excuse. We're going in to this season with arguably the worst 2nd pairing and the worst 3rd pairing of all healthy pairings last season.

I agree, let's hope he has a quick trigger finger if the same results happen.

 

[Buffdog]

(warning: long essay - only the first paragraph is really a response to you, @KFnC204 - but then it got my brain thinking about this whole thread, and I decided to outline my perception of our current context since I haven't chimed in on this thread. Apologies for long-windedness in advance!)

Some people use historical data, evaluate what could have been improved based on hindsight, and then make better decisions in the present. Other people are doomed to repeat past mistakes if they haven't understood what went wrong.

In Petan's case, it is an oversimplification to say he was too small, not tough enough, etc - those things were sort of true, but not the whole picture. Evaluating what actually happened on the ice, we could see that there was a situation in which Petan excelled. However, that situation did not fit into Maurice's preconceived notions of his deployment strategy. Instead of changing to a top 9/bottom 3 approach (once or twice we had the personnel to do it, but he never tried), he stuck with his top 6/checking/scrubs deployment, and Petan (as a playmaker) absolutely sucked.

(there were also non-hockey factors that disrupted Petan's development at key times, like losing his dad... Hard to quantify that effect).

The org made the correct decision to cut him loose because they chose not to change their deployment strategy. Personally, I'm more a fan of evaluating what pieces you actually have, and then finding a way to maximize their talents. Maurice was not capable of that, it requires cognitive functions that most extraverted former players have as blind spots (because you have to be awesome in the moment to make it as a player).

Why does this matter? Well, in this thread, some of us are seeing a similar trend - one option is to not play Heinola and disrupt development (and its bullshit to say that the NHL is not a development league - every player keeps developing or ends their career: just heard Jagr say in an interview about how he continually was learning to adjust his game to his abilities). The other option is to reevaluate deployment.

The tricky thing with Heinola is we're dealing with contract status (waiver exemption) and some handedness issues, and only one spot. What coaches struggle to grasp (yes, even some NHL coaches) is that to achieve maximum potential you have to sacrifice some present results (and we're only talking short term: like suffer for 2 weeks and reap the bonus benefits for an extra 6-24 months).

Things also changed for me when we signed Dillon and Schmidt. I was 100% in favour of playing Heinola instead of Beaulieu or Poolman or Bitetto or Sbisa. But Dillon is probably the best 3rd pairing quality D we've had and Schmidt is getting paid a tonne to be just a little bit better than Heinola (but I think Schmidt's good enough to not benefit from the short term sacrifices we'd have to make to play Heinola fulltime). So that puts us in an awkward spot.

So, just like we should have either changed our deployment or traded Petan, I'd like to see us get something for our assets. Getting Schmidt in particular basically made Heinola redundant - so in my eyes one of them should be traded, or we get nothing for H's 1st round pick.

In hindsight, it's clear Chevy was going all out to win last year, to please Maurice got semi-established D's, and the team crashed. It would have been better to play Heinola fulltime and rotate Samberg & Stanley last year - we would have had the same result or a better draft pick, and we'd be miles ahead right now.

Personally, I think we should always have one or two rookies playing to constantly refresh our team - but again, what we learned from Petan, that requires an intentional deployment taking into account our actual roster instead of a cookie-cutter template that worked in the 80's.

Lots of good stuff here I agree with, but I'd like to point out one thing about the board's favorite "pet prospect" that seems to go either unnoticed or unsaid. And that's the fact that we make judgements on players and prospects based on our viewings (or not - home many of us have watched every game or shift of heinola or Samberg on the moose?) or a graph someone has come up with that has some stats on it that supports the poster's case on why a young player deserves to be in the lineup.

On the other hand, TNSE and coaching staffs are immersed with these kids 24/7. They see every shift, every rep in practice.. as well as how a player carries themselves both on and off the ice.

So, just consider this for a second (I know, it's crazy talk)... maybe management isn't incompetent compared to us internet posters... but instead, they use the extra info that they have on hand to make a decision that is correct, even if we can't see why from where we're sitting.

Whether it was postma, petan, niku, burmi... they were all HFJets darlings that went on to do exactly JACK SHIT in other organizations. So maybe TNSE was right about them after all. And maybe they made the right choices in waiving kovy and sending heinola down despite what everyone here (for the most part) seems to be saying

 

[Mathil8]

Glad to see Gustafsson and Manealanen getting PK time. Refusing to inject youth into our PK was something I've found infuriating in the past.

Interesting that the two PK D pairings mentioned there have Stanley AND Samberg in them, as I expect one to be in the press box for game 1...

 

[voyageur]

Sure as hell hope that Bowness's style of play for the team has different results than Maurice's, because Dillon-Pionk and Stanley-Schmidt will fast track us out of the playoff race otherwise.

And if they do, there is no real excuse. We're going in to this season with arguably the worst 2nd pairing and the worst 3rd pairing of all healthy pairings last season.

Now if you are the coach man, who would you play? Because we know Morrissey gets tied to Scheifele's line more often than not. Best players together, & chemistry, with one defensive suppressor.

Dillon-Pionk are probably the next best at defending, makes perfect sense to use them as a shutdown pairing with Lowry's line. Some physicality some speed mixed together. Pionk is a pretty good shot suppressor in his own right, maybe underrated.

Now who works with Schmidt? Heinola, and he shows good chemistry with Perfetti, but he has no immediate special teams impact. Samberg does, and he should be the probable #6 at some point in the first 20 games. The Schmidt pairing will often get put behind the Dubois line. Mostly offensive zone time, which isn't a bad spot to put Stanley, as he is still the best shot on the point.

Think of what roles the players should play given the situational play, and linemates, and tell me who works best with whom.

 

[Mathil8]

In regards to Heinola getting sent down and Stanley likely starting over Samberg:

I feel like a lot of us are so used to how our coaching staff has handled our D pairings in the past that we're generally down on this news. I am as well, but I have hope that with the new coaching staff we'll see more movement in the bottom pairing, ie. platooning Samberg/Heinola/Stanley. Also there will be lots of games available for these D-men due to injuries.

Yes these are all things we've said in the past, but maybe this time our coach will actually do these things instead of just blowing smoke up our asses.

I'm still salty about all the lost development time of our young D/bottom 6 forwards over the past few years in favour of vets with little upside and no future with the team...

Which leads me to a random pet peeve of mine with these boards. People like to harp on how players like Petan/Postma/Niku/etc not being in the NHL or being waived by other clubs vindicates the development choices made by management prior to moving on from them. I feel some people strongly underestimate the amount of luck and opportunity that goes into ingraining yourself into an NHL roster and developing into an everyday NHL player.

At some point players have to be given their chance to get NHL game reps in. Otherwise they're left to stagnate on the vine. Hopefully our coaching staff will have a better way of integrating youth outside of our top 6.

 

[MrBoJangelz71]

I feel like a lot of us are so used to how our coaching staff has handled our D pairings in the past that we're generally down on this news. I am as well, but I have hope that with the new coaching staff we'll see more movement in the bottom pairing, ie. platooning Samberg/Heinola/Stanley. Also there will be lots of games available for these D-men due to injuries.

Yes these are all things we've said in the past, but maybe this time our coach will actually do these things instead of just blowing smoke up our asses.

This is a very good point.

 

[WolfHouse]

(warning: long essay - only the first paragraph is really a response to you, @KFnC204 - but then it got my brain thinking about this whole thread, and I decided to outline my perception of our current context since I haven't chimed in on this thread. Apologies for long-windedness in advance!)

Some people use historical data, evaluate what could have been improved based on hindsight, and then make better decisions in the present. Other people are doomed to repeat past mistakes if they haven't understood what went wrong.

In Petan's case, it is an oversimplification to say he was too small, not tough enough, etc - those things were sort of true, but not the whole picture. Evaluating what actually happened on the ice, we could see that there was a situation in which Petan excelled. However, that situation did not fit into Maurice's preconceived notions of his deployment strategy. Instead of changing to a top 9/bottom 3 approach (once or twice we had the personnel to do it, but he never tried), he stuck with his top 6/checking/scrubs deployment, and Petan (as a playmaker) absolutely sucked.

(there were also non-hockey factors that disrupted Petan's development at key times, like losing his dad... Hard to quantify that effect).

The org made the correct decision to cut him loose because they chose not to change their deployment strategy. Personally, I'm more a fan of evaluating what pieces you actually have, and then finding a way to maximize their talents. Maurice was not capable of that, it requires cognitive functions that most extraverted former players have as blind spots (because you have to be awesome in the moment to make it as a player).

Why does this matter? Well, in this thread, some of us are seeing a similar trend - one option is to not play Heinola and disrupt development (and its bullshit to say that the NHL is not a development league - every player keeps developing or ends their career: just heard Jagr say in an interview about how he continually was learning to adjust his game to his abilities). The other option is to reevaluate deployment.

The tricky thing with Heinola is we're dealing with contract status (waiver exemption) and some handedness issues, and only one spot. What coaches struggle to grasp (yes, even some NHL coaches) is that to achieve maximum potential you have to sacrifice some present results (and we're only talking short term: like suffer for 2 weeks and reap the bonus benefits for an extra 6-24 months).

Things also changed for me when we signed Dillon and Schmidt. I was 100% in favour of playing Heinola instead of Beaulieu or Poolman or Bitetto or Sbisa. But Dillon is probably the best 3rd pairing quality D we've had and Schmidt is getting paid a tonne to be just a little bit better than Heinola (but I think Schmidt's good enough to not benefit from the short term sacrifices we'd have to make to play Heinola fulltime). So that puts us in an awkward spot.

So, just like we should have either changed our deployment or traded Petan, I'd like to see us get something for our assets. Getting Schmidt in particular basically made Heinola redundant - so in my eyes one of them should be traded, or we get nothing for H's 1st round pick.

In hindsight, it's clear Chevy was going all out to win last year, to please Maurice got semi-established D's, and the team crashed. It would have been better to play Heinola fulltime and rotate Samberg & Stanley last year - we would have had the same result or a better draft pick, and we'd be miles ahead right now.

Personally, I think we should always have one or two rookies playing to constantly refresh our team - but again, what we learned from Petan, that requires an intentional deployment taking into account our actual roster instead of a cookie-cutter template that worked in the 80's.

Great post

 

[voyageur]

In regards to Heinola getting sent down and Stanley likely starting over Samberg:

I feel like a lot of us are so used to how our coaching staff has handled our D pairings in the past that we're generally down on this news. I am as well, but I have hope that with the new coaching staff we'll see more movement in the bottom pairing, ie. platooning Samberg/Heinola/Stanley. Also there will be lots of games available for these D-men due to injuries.

Yes these are all things we've said in the past, but maybe this time our coach will actually do these things instead of just blowing smoke up our asses.

I'm still salty about all the lost development time of our young D/bottom 6 forwards over the past few years in favour of vets with little upside and no future with the team...

Which leads me to a random pet peeve of mine with these boards. People like to harp on how players like Petan/Postma/Niku/etc not being in the NHL or being waived by other clubs vindicates the development choices made by management prior to moving on from them. I feel some people strongly underestimate the amount of luck and opportunity that goes into ingraining yourself into an NHL roster and developing into an everyday NHL player.

At some point players have to be given their chance to get NHL game reps in. Otherwise they're left to stagnate on the vine. Hopefully our coaching staff will have a better way of integrating youth outside of our top 6.

One thing that is evident is that our HF forum folks don't think about special teams very much. And they tend to favour offense over defense (Sami Niku was a prime example, formerly a fanbased #1 prospect, Leon Gawanke's high ratings in the prospect pool exhibit B, Postma, exhibit C vs. say Ben Chiarot, who like Beaulieu/Sbisa playing on broken bones, or like Stanley, have no or detrimental value in some eyes). The Jets were 28th in the league last year on the PK. At 75%. For me I said that was the number one thing the Jets needed to improve on in the offseason to be successful. And the coaching staff here is taking special teams seriously this year. Systems, personnel, etc. Players who don't contribute are out. Scoring 5 on 5 in the NHL isn't that easy. Almost every game over the course of the year will be decided by a special teams situation, and the success or failure in them. Kudos to our management and coaches who recognize this. Ville Heinola will become a better player, 21 year olds don't stagnate, unless they lack motivation.

 

[DRW204]

 

[KingBogo]

It is impressive the effort Bones takes to communicate to young players why decisions were made and where the stand in the organization. I see Heinola developing very well under him and blossom into an offensively gifted top 4 under him over the next couple seasons.

 

[DRW204]

imo they probably should've traded one of a d man earlier to help with fwd depth. using an asset for an area weakness is still good use.

the 3 vets presumably are morrisey, pionk and schmidt, all were on this roster in the summer & with 3+ years left. nothing was gonna change to have heinola on this roster in my view. if they want to go w/ stanley b/c of PK, thats ok, although he doesn't rate all that good on the PK but a different staff perhaps changes him? no clue.

much to chagrin i guess to folks around here. heinola wasn't making the roster with a bad depth chart, now that it has vets+high $ higher up it, it's even a bigger uphill battle.

 

[Guardian17]

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[JetsUK]

It is impressive the effort Bones takes to communicate to young players why decisions were made and where the stand in the organization. I see Heinola developing very well under him and blossom into an offensively gifted top 4 under him over the next couple seasons.

Agree that he’s a refreshingly honest and straightforward communicator. I share your optimism with Ville and will be delighted to see it play out.

 

[Mathil8]

One thing that is evident is that our HF forum folks don't think about special teams very much. And they tend to favour offense over defense (Sami Niku was a prime example, formerly a fanbased #1 prospect, Leon Gawanke's high ratings in the prospect pool exhibit B, Postma, exhibit C vs. say Ben Chiarot, who like Beaulieu/Sbisa playing on broken bones, or like Stanley, have no or detrimental value in some eyes). The Jets were 28th in the league last year on the PK. At 75%. For me I said that was the number one thing the Jets needed to improve on in the offseason to be successful. And the coaching staff here is taking special teams seriously this year. Systems, personnel, etc. Players who don't contribute are out. Scoring 5 on 5 in the NHL isn't that easy. Almost every game over the course of the year will be decided by a special teams situation, and the success or failure in them. Kudos to our management and coaches who recognize this. Ville Heinola will become a better player, 21 year olds don't stagnate, unless they lack motivation.

I think a lot of the favouring offense in prospects comes from the fact that even the best defensive defensemen and forwards put up points in lesser leagues. That does seem to carry over for prospects at the AHL/NHL level too. Points are the sexy stat over all.

I agree that special teams is a big part of personnel decisions, particularly lower in the line up for PK options. I'm happy that Bowness isn't adverse to using young/untested players like Gustafsson there to start. I will be pumped if we can have a PK that's not consistently in the bottom 10 moving forward!

That being said, I wouldn't use special teams as an argument to keep Stanley up over Heinola (not saying you're making this argument, just in general), as he's been historically bad in a PK role. However, I could see Samberg getting a leg up on Heinola due to his potential PK ability.

I also disagree that 21 year old players don't stagnate. There comes a time when only so much can be learned against weaker competition. If you're not running into the issues you would in the NHL at the AHL level it's hard to overcome them.

 

[Royale With Cheese]

Lots of good stuff here I agree with, but I'd like to point out one thing about the board's favorite "pet prospect" that seems to go either unnoticed or unsaid. And that's the fact that we make judgements on players and prospects based on our viewings (or not - home many of us have watched every game or shift of heinola or Samberg on the moose?) or a graph someone has come up with that has some stats on it that supports the poster's case on why a young player deserves to be in the lineup.

On the other hand, TNSE and coaching staffs are immersed with these kids 24/7. They see every shift, every rep in practice.. as well as how a player carries themselves both on and off the ice.

So, just consider this for a second (I know, it's crazy talk)... maybe management isn't incompetent compared to us internet posters... but instead, they use the extra info that they have on hand to make a decision that is correct, even if we can't see why from where we're sitting.

Whether it was postma, petan, niku, burmi... they were all HFJets darlings that went on to do exactly JACK SHIT in other organizations. So maybe TNSE was right about them after all. And maybe they made the right choices in waiving kovy and sending heinola down despite what everyone here (for the most part) seems to be saying

Tend to agree. Jets brass have usually been right about many of the decisions we fans didn't initially agree with.

And you forgot one guy - Marko Dano.

 

[DRW204]

this is a good point. if it's about defensive game and PK, Stanley really doesn't rate strong either areas (to be fair: this whole team generally rates poor on PK). through his draft+6 he hasn't really shown he can hold down a 3rd pair sans Demelo & this team needs demelo higher up in the line-up rather than baby-sitting. i also don't love the stanley-schmidt pairing but it is what it is.

also from a previous post of yours.... i do like the idea of platooning, however, how often do coaches really do this? it sounds like a viable & fairly easy strategy but how often does it happen? Idk if Bowness did it previously in DAL either.

I think a lot of the favouring offense in prospects comes from the fact that even the best defensive defensemen and forwards put up points in lesser leagues. That does seem to carry over for prospects at the AHL/NHL level too. Points are the sexy stat over all.

I agree that special teams is a big part of personnel decisions, particularly lower in the line up for PK options. I'm happy that Bowness isn't adverse to using young/untested players like Gustafsson there to start. I will be pumped if we can have a PK that's not consistently in the bottom 10 moving forward!

That being said, I wouldn't use special teams as an argument to keep Stanley up over Heinola (not saying you're making this argument, just in general), as he's been historically bad in a PK role. However, I could see Samberg getting a leg up on Heinola due to his potential PK ability.

I also disagree that 21 year old players don't stagnate. There comes a time when only so much can be learned against weaker competition. If you're not running into the issues you would in the NHL at the AHL level it's hard to overcome them.

 

[Mathil8]

this is a good point. if it's about defensive game and PK, Stanley really doesn't rate strong either areas (to be fair: this whole team generally rates poor on PK). through his draft+6 he hasn't really shown he can hold down a 3rd pair sans Demelo & this team needs demelo higher up in the line-up rather than baby-sitting. i also don't love the stanley-schmidt pairing but it is what it is.

also from a previous post of yours.... i do like the idea of platooning, however, how often do coaches really do this? it sounds like a viable & fairly easy strategy but how often does it happen? Idk if Bowness did it previously in DAL either.

Yup, I'm curious to see if platooning will be given a shot. Coaches are creatures of habit and have a hard time implementing frequent change more often than not haha.

 

[KingBogo]

I think a lot of the favouring offense in prospects comes from the fact that even the best defensive defensemen and forwards put up points in lesser leagues. That does seem to carry over for prospects at the AHL/NHL level too. Points are the sexy stat over all.

I agree that special teams is a big part of personnel decisions, particularly lower in the line up for PK options. I'm happy that Bowness isn't adverse to using young/untested players like Gustafsson there to start. I will be pumped if we can have a PK that's not consistently in the bottom 10 moving forward!

That being said, I wouldn't use special teams as an argument to keep Stanley up over Heinola (not saying you're making this argument, just in general), as he's been historically bad in a PK role. However, I could see Samberg getting a leg up on Heinola due to his potential PK ability.

I also disagree that 21 year old players don't stagnate. There comes a time when only so much can be learned against weaker competition. If you're not running into the issues you would in the NHL at the AHL level it's hard to overcome them.

At least for me I’m willing to trust that Bone’s reputation for developing young defenceman has been well earned and he has a development plan for Heinola. I also don’t see Villie and Stanley competing for the same role. Samberg is Stanley’s direct competition for playing time. Heinola needs to push past Schmidt or Pionk to get the role he is best suited for.

 

[gojetsgo]