On the left wing we have Drouin and Tatar. Should he replaces any one of them? As much as I dislike Drouin...he shouldn't. So yeah, Lehkonen should be on the 3rd line. Yet, not doing anything offensively, was he because he was paired with Kotka? Maybe. Surely. So he got shafted to the 4th line. Pretty sure nobody thinks he's a 4th liner for life. But he needs to step it up. And because he is good defensively, there is NO WAY that he gets shafted for the fun of it.
Lekonen should be at RW, he looks better there but they would need to move someone or him to fit him there.
It is simply impossible to know. Yes, confidence is huge. But we have no idea how kids deal with that unless we know them or they tell us. No idea. I mean Charles Hudon got A LOT of AHL seasoning. Let say we bring him in early and he ends up like he is right now, you would have said the same thing....that he needed more seasoning. Yet....he had it. And he's still not good enough.
For me, it's just too simplistic to automatically say more seasoning = better for everyone. This league is now a league much younger than it once was. You will see more and more kids making a difference from the get go. People talk about confidence and yet isn't there something better than to say to a kid that he's already for the NHL and that he'll play a key role in it? HOw the heck is that bad for the confidence to say to Mete that he will be Weber's partner? How the heck is that bad for Kotka to say that he'll center the 3rd line for most of his 1st year.?
But most importantly, somebody, somewhere, will need to explain to me how the heck is that awful for a kid's progression that even though he started his career too soon in the NHL, that sending him back in the AHL is just killing his career. Doesn't the kid knows that the extraordinairy thing is not him being sent back, but it was him staying in the NHL from the get go? That he can take that as a superb idea of what he needs to improve to make it?
As fun as it is to bash Pacioretty and he deserved it, how come he was able to say to the Habs that if you are going to play me in a dfensive role in the NHL, send me back in thie AHL so that I'd get my offensive groove back? Is he the god of self-confidence?
It's not more seasoning = better for everyone, it's taking caution, less risky to take your time. What's wrong with wanting to see your prospect work on things they need to in the AHL as long as they are showing they need improvement there.
Take Juulsen for example, I just don't get how on earth anyone can say he wasn't rushed to the NHL. In his rookie year he was injured to start the season, goes to the AHL, plays I believe it was 25 games and in those games he has points in 2 of them. Now how on earth can the Habs look at that and say he's doing great working on his offense there so after 6 games later where he started putting up points they call him up.
Now how was that a good move when he clearly needed to work more on his offense. Yes his defensive game was NHL level imo, but why shortchange him, why not let him spend a full year in the AHL to work on his offense? What would it hurt vs rushing to the NHL and hoping he can develop his offense there which maybe he can, I'm not saying he can't but that the AHL is there for these kids to work on things they need to work on.
As for sending to the NHL too soon and it killing their career, I wouldn't put it way either. Take Leblanc for example, 20 year old rookie, led every team before that in ppg, rookie of the year in back to back years. So I think it's safe to say that the kid going into the AHL at 20 had a lot of confidence or at least a fair amount. He does very well, one of their best players, things are going as hoped and even much better. Then the Habs say let's call him up, now I can understand it to a degree and this is one of those in hindsight it may not have been the best idea type of moves but he clearly was still very skinny and lacking strength.
That said what do you think was going through his head, likely all that confidence, goes to the AHL and is one of their best players, gets called up to the NHL, doesn't play poorly at all. But then the next season he's in the AHL, now he's been one of their best players the previous year but a new coach, that had NEVER been a head coach at ANY level says no you aren't going to be on the PP or the top line anymore. What do you think was going through his head by then, how do you think it may have impacted his confidence? Clearly he was night and day as a player and we'll never know what they could have done differently that maybe would of had a slightly better outcome but we can at least offer up where we think they went wrong vs just saying it was his fault and that's it.
But I've said so many times now that I think everyone involved is at fault here. Did bringing him up too soon impact him, we can't know and can only guess. You want to blame Timmins more and I want to blame Lefebvre more since he had no track record of success as a head coach and Timmins clearly did prior to the shit storm that was our development for 6 years. But I've said management certainly didn't help matters by rushing them, putting them in the NHL too soon, not giving them enough time in the AHL. There's no way to know how things may have improved or gone differently had they do so, perhaps it wouldn't have mattered one bit but then again why keep repeating the move, at some point why not say hey we seem to be having some trouble with developing these kids maybe we should try something different here.
So no i don't think calling kids up too soon killed their career but I do think it's a risky move that can backfire because of confidence. That wouldn't end their career but it imo for many will have a large impact or at least an impact to some degree that makes things tougher on them to rebound.
