What evidence is there that Marc Staals presence is going to in anyway help the young dmen hes preventing from playing?
There's no evidence that this specific signing will help because the season hasn't started yet. There's tons of evidence of rebuilding teams signing the Marc Staals of the world to fill their roster and provide leadership. If you provide me with a team that went through a rebuild that you consider successful, I'll show you an example of them signing a Staal type player during said rebuild.
The best way to bring along young talent is to put them in positions to succeed at the NHL level and build their confidence. You let the player excell at what their strengths are then use that confidence to develop the rest of their game over time.
Agreed. And if you don't feel a prospect is ready, throwing them to the wolves of the NHL to get dragged night in night out is not a way to "build their confidence". Sometimes, the way you build confidence is with big minutes in the AHL, surrounded by similar young talent, winning games, playing a role similar to what you envision their ideal NHL role to be. Then when they show you they've matured and they're ready, you give them their shot.
The Flyers? They do the opposite. Their is an deeply rooted organizational philosophy that confidence and success at a young age is bad bc in order to be successful you have to have paid your dues and gone to hell and back doing it. Tgey love the Seelers and Mannings of the world bc they "paid their dues" This is why they routinely dick young talented players around by keeping them in the AHL too long...and when they get called up, they see limited time in a role they could succeed in before getting demoted, benched, scratched, and sent down. Why? Because theyre told to focus on their weak areas first. So a goal scorer spends a few games in the top 6, focuses on D bc thats what he was told to do, then gets demoted bc he wasnt scoring. They also love to publicly criticize these players...either by directly saying it or getting the media to push naratives.
Again, I'd love to see just one example of a player we set back because he didn't "pay his dues". Where are these players we've mishandled that thrive as soon as they get out of our terrible organization?
What young, talented players have we "dicked"? Morgan Frost? So one player? And we consider him to be "dicked" because we played him 15 or so games in the AHL directly after he sustained a season-ending shoulder injury the year prior after only 2 games? Or because we then sent him down for another 5 games when he didn't produce?
This narrative is laughable tbh.
I've been told multiple times by multiple people on this board that bringing a player like Frost up to play 3rd/4th line mins isn't a bad thing and that plenty of great players thrive and "breakout" doing that. But then those same people turn around and say that to expect Frost to thrive in a role like that is ridiculous and that we're "mishandling him" by expecting him to play in such a role in the infancy of his NHL career. It's damned if you do and damned if you don't!
Ghost is a great example. He was called up out of necessity because of an injury to Streit. Hextall routinely made comments about how he hated calling him up and he wasnt ready. Ghost was forced into a role as an offensive Dman and top PP guy bc they had literally no one else. And you know what? He THRIVED and went on to be a calder candidate. Why? Bc he was allowed to play to his strength and gain confidence.
Not sure what Ghost is a great example of. We didn't "dick" Ghost around. He tore his ACL, which essentially burned an entire year of his development. And most guys need some time to get back to speed after tearing their ACL. If not for that injury to Streit, he likely would've spent MAYBE 20 or so additional games in the AHL. He was a top prospect and everyone knew/expected him to be beating down the doors to the big club very quickly. If Streit hadn't been injured, Ghost wasn't going to be "ruined" spending a few additional games in the minors.
But I do agree the role Ghost stepped into was perfect for his skillset. And I do agree that you give players the best chance to thrive when you bring them up and put them in a role commensurate with their talent and surround them with similarly talented teammates. Which is exactly why I'm not stressing if certain prospects spend big mins playing a big role for the Phantoms rather than playing bottom 6 or bottom pairing mins/roles for the Flyers.
