Clarke can certainly improve, and his quality of play has gone down. But I genuinely think the Kings have a habit of getting in their own way with prospects, particularly skilled ones.
Clarke was great at the start of the season. But once his risky plays were called out (even when there weren't catastrophic consequences), his quality of play dipped.
If you want a player like Clarke, you have to let him be Clarke. Don't try to turn him into Faber. You try to improve areas of the game to complement his style. Or you're wasting everyone's time.
When McLellan was coach, he had the right buzzwords but didn't exactly follow through with it, in my opinion. It was something to the effect of "play your game, but in my system."
I'm concerned the Kings are going to trade valuable prospects, possibly Clarke, for another "go for it" run. And I question the org's ability to do anything meaningful in the playoffs with whatever they get.
The reality is, they never wanted that.
I remember thinking to myself, "what are they doing?" as each inexplicable and unorthodox development decision was made with the high picks.
No other team would have pulled Turcotte after the season he had at UW, why did the Kings?
Teams almost always put their players taken as high as QB in the NHL, why didn't the Kings?
Players of Clarke's draft pedigree with the season he had at age 19 always make the NHL at 20, why didn't he?
The answer should be clear as day by now, it was never about maximizing these guys ceilings for the next generation of LA Kings hockey, it was about getting them to Ontario and churning them out to be good system players for Anze Kopitar and Drew Doughty's LA Kings.
@bland has been arguing this point for years now, and many people pushed back on him for it, but he was 100% correct, it was always about Kopitar and Doughty, and it still is, even as each guy is closer to 40 than they are to 30.
The players who don't play the type of defense everything hockey are moved on from (Vilardi, Kaliyev, with perhaps Clarke next) and the player with control to block the AHL BS, (Faber) was also moved from. With Faber and Vilardi escaping the insane asylum to develop into star players for their new teams.