I genuinely don't understand this. Like, the part about letting them figure it out on their own, okay sure. I don't necessarily
love the thought that a "development coach" is not actively coaching them against playing timid to avoid the press box (contrast Terry
talking about being coached through fear of mistakes being a big turning point for him), but the players do ultimately have to figure out their own balance on when to take risks, fair enough. The Terry method won't work for everyone, anyway.
But then he specifically cites how Vaaks played well in his one game, but hasn't seen the ice since then because he's the eighth defenseman and that's just "the world he lives in," which sounds an awful lot like the opposite of an example of players being free to earn their ice time. (I'd get it a lot more if "played pretty well" was being contrasted with the rest of the D corps playing "great", but it's harder when Zellweger has already been removed from the PP and arguably looks due for a trip to the Gulls.)
Frankly, it's kind of weird for him to cite Vaaks there at all. Usually when you're talking about the benefits of competition, it's about the guys higher in the lineup feeling the heat from below. Not just the guy at the bottom of the depth chart playing well but still sitting because he's at the bottom of the depth chart. If I'm the sixth defenseman hearing that I do not feel all that healthily pressured.
Also not impressed with him wishing there was more of that competition with the forwards, as if Killorn hasn't kept getting handed first line and PP1 time while providing nothing but being old. Guys having to earn their ice time isn't a binary choice between "sit in the press box" and "lead the forwards in TOI" (which the Zegras and Gauthier benchings prove he knows just fine) and he seems remarkably arbitrary about using that tool. But that's a different rant.
