BagHead
Registered User
25 is as good as it gets? Someone should really let Vegas know. Haula and Marchessault at least. Not to mention McNabb and Engelland. Plus Schmidt who never played above 3rd pair before ending up the #1 on the Western Conference championship team. Good thing Karlsson managed his 78 point breakout last year or he'd be stuck a 15 point player forever. Good thing that Burns trade didn't come back to bite the Wild, because when he was 25 he was a 40 point-ish, often defensively questionable defender and in return they got so much "potential." Won't get better than that because all players develop along the exact same linear timeline. Because surely players not playing up in the lineup in their mid 20's can only be due to their abilities and not their team's existing depth pool, or when they began their professional development.
It's funny that Bruce didn't have a better option than Seeler to play 2nd pair LHD when he started.... 6th on the depth chart last year? Suter, Brodin, Reilly, Olofsson for sure, then Soucy is debatable. Reilly got traded for nearly nothing, Olofsson could be following in his footsteps, and Soucy already got pushed aside for Seeler by the end of the year. So yeah, he's a 3rd pairing defense. For now. Because the two ahead of him are established players while he still has to prove himself. Let's hope he doesn't get sent to Seattle only to break out because of his non-contextualized perception as a 3rd liner at 25 years old.
Got many examples that aren't on an expansion team? Yeah, oddities happen, but Burns and Seeler are very different players. Haula would not have scored 60 points on the Wild. Seeler is not a top 4 dman on the Wild. He could become one, but at 25, the odds are low.