Martin Skoula
Registered User
- Oct 18, 2017
- 12,210
- 17,177
The "9 game" thing to me shouldn't actually matter.
All it does is allow his ELC to roll over to the following year.
Personally, I'd take the approach of doing everything you can to keep him in the NHL lineup at least 50% of the time until the WJCs.
After that, make a decision whether he should go and be a 1st line player back in London, or wherever he falls in the Leafs lineup.
His biggest improvements to be a useful NHLer are putting on 10 pounds and making marginal improvements to his skating, strength on the puck, and shooting mechanics/shot selection. I can’t see how 3 games a week against teenagers is a better place to do that than playing 1 out of every 3-4 games against men and spending the rest of the time living in the gym with professional trainers, nutritionists, and skills coaches, practicing against NHLers, and getting 10 minutes every few games to get a feel for what he can and can’t get away with against NHL D and goalies.
Burning the ELC year is also a godsend imo, if we had Marner and Nylander burn their ELCs at 18 we’d have saved millions on them when they hit RFA without a track record of high end production from day 1. I’d rather negotiate against a 21 year old with 15, 30, 50 points under his belt vs a 22 year old with 30, 50, 60.