Ya sorry don’t buy into all that nonsense , AA for instance was playing great with limited ice time and producing and despite all that we still held him back and now that he’s getting ice time and look at that producing we’re suppose to believe it’s cause blashill made him work for it? It’s bs
Abdelkader is making 4 million a year playing on a 4th line , your telling me he’s out playing other kids? If it wasn’t for his salary his ass would be shipped out of here , vanek would be gone as well if not for a ntc, these guys have like 20-30 pts so let’s not pretend they some great nhl players who are outclassing kids by far
Now again I’m not here saying holmstrom and turgeon are these great nhl players I just think they deserve a look , holmstrom came here for 3 years and wasted it playing with nobodies on the 4th line and is going back home and frankly I don’t blame him , turgeon I do believe has a future on the nhl as a grinder,checker and penalty killer type guy whether it be on Detroit or elsewhere.
You are aware players make the nhl at 23-26 right ? We’re just writing these kids off at 22 cause they aren’t producing a pt per game in the ahl?last I checked our top 6 is composed of career 30 yr old ahlers. Anyways like I’ve said it wouldn’t hurt to bench abdelkader 2-3 games and call up a kid, abdelkader has been **** all season
No, we're "writing these kids off" because they're 100% replaceable. They don't show NHL caliber tools in their time in the AHL. You don't get time and opportunity by just being a good soldier who happens to be younger than another one.
To go back to AA, he had limited ice time because he would loaf it on the ice. That's not even subjective. He'd not be as engaged as he should be. He wasn't being held back, he was holding himself back.
And on Abby, it's not that he's outperforming kids. They're not outperforming him. That sounds like semantics, but if you want to displace someone, you have to give the impression that you'll be an improvement, not just a different face. And "oh, Abby sucks, anyone would be an improvement" isn't an argument. I'm not saying that they're outclassing the kids by far... but to remove them, the Wings would either a) take it up the rear on value (Abby) or go against a clause they themselves gave him (Vanek). The kids have to not only be a better option than whoever, they've got to be worth doing some roster shenanigans for. And if they'll get 20 points or Abby will get 20 points, I understand sticking with Abby.
And no, they don't deserve a look if they don't force the team to take a look. Look back at Sean Avery when he was starting out with Detroit way back when. He came in, I think it was the 02 preseason, and tore **** up. Made an impression on EVERYONE. He wasn't anywhere near as skilled as anyone on that roster, but he showed a big propensity to turn a game with physicality.
That's why teams pick the guys they do in the late rounds too. They find one thing a guy does really well and that they really like and they hone in on that.
Axel Holmstrom from what I've read hasn't ever done anything of particular note and his skating has always needed to come around. Turgeon is a guy who can run in a bottom six? Cool, so are about 14 of the 20 players we've taken in the last two drafts. So is Jacob De La Rose who we got for free. If you want to be a grinder on an NHL team, you have to be more than just a guy who survives.
To end, Abby, Helm, Nielsen, Vanek, none of those guys are career AHLers. None of them. You might not like them or think they're any good... but they've all proven to be NHL players. Career AHLers are guys like Teemu Pulkkinen and Martin Frk.