Lol of course he has a choice. No one is forcing them to play those guys.
The Rangers literally had a 1 and 2 OA who they were dicking out of ice time in lieu of the likes of Colin Blackwell and Ryan Strome. When other teams actually try to incorporate those players in with their better vets, the Rangers coaches were either saying they needed to "EARN IT" while overlooking other underperforming players that they loved (Howden, who as much as DQ loved, he actually hurt by playing as much as he did) or were throwing their young players together so he could lean on his trusty vets (Gallant.)
It took until last year for Lafreniere to get proper usage and lo and behold he responded with a strong season. Kakko was so misused and handled by Quinn that it's an injustice that DQ is still allowed to coach at this level in any capacity. Laviolette basically signed his ticket out of town because he didn't have the balls to scratch players who actually deserved it but the mis handling of him started basically a few months into his rookie season.
Harley really struggled when he came up fwiw. Notice how he didn't get buried or singled out? He was allowed to work through his shit and BOOM, Stars now have a great young defenseman.
Meanwhile we can't get our brilliant coach to budge on Ryan f***ing Lindgren who is literally unplayable but ohhhhh f*** Zac Jones if he makes a mistake.
Thats the difference between what DeBoer has done and how the young players here have been handled. He puts those kids in a position to succeed, our coaches have buried them so Colin Blackwell can get more minutes, Ryan Strome can eat PP1 time or Ryan Lindgren can be f***ing useless for 20 minutes a night
The criticisms of DeBoer before joining the Stars across the Panthers, Devils, and Sharks included that he favored vets over youth and was too stubborn to play the kids.
At what point is it on the players - the kids - to seize any opportunity to perform and do so? Amazingly, once DeBoer had a handful of kids who made it impossible to NOT play them, they play, and suddenly he’s “great at doing both.” No, those kids forced his hand.
Kakko and Laf both had many opportunities, and neither performed at a PPG pace at any point of their careers like Robertson did at 19. Hell, Kakko struggled to hit 0.5PPG years after his draft, while Johnston hit that as a 19 year old. They EARNED it. Even Jones - earn it. In practice. In how you show up. In the playing time you do get. Those three (Kakko, Laf, and Jones) have shown far less than the Dallas trio I named. That’s why they play “over the vets.” Dallas doesn’t have any vets to play over them, and they’ve outperformed the rest of the roster. Call me when the Rangers have a single kid do that, because it hasn’t been Kakko, Laf, Jones, Kravstov, Mancini, or any of the others I’ve seen this board pine after as if they were budding superstars merely held back by an incompetent coach who happens to be on of 8 coaches in history with 800+ wins at this level.
Edit: and several of these kids HAD the “play and develop the kids” coach in Quinn, and still failed to show anything close to the Dallas trio. Again, at what point do we force the kids to look inwards rather than blaming multiple coaches at the highest level?