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Prospect Info: 22nd Overall Tobias Bjornfot, Defence

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KINGS17 said:
I agree, Bjornfot won't be in Ontario for four seasons. That doesn't mean he should be rushed into the NHL next season.
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The thing that stands out to me with Bjornfot is that as an 18-year-old, he led Ontario in +/- with a +13, and that is on a team that is not strong offensively or defensively. Andersen is a -10 and Clague is a -14.

I think he's mentally mature and the fact that he hasn't struggled playing as a teenager in the AHL is a huge plus. I'm glad they didn't keep him up on the roster all of this season, and it wouldn't surprise me if he graduated to the NHL as a 19-year-old.
 
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Ziggy Stardust said:
The thing that stands out to me with Bjornfot is that as an 18-year-old, he led Ontario in +/- with a +13, and that is on a team that is not strong offensively or defensively. Andersen is a -10 and Clague is a -14.

I think he's mentally mature and the fact that he hasn't struggled playing as a teenager in the AHL is a huge plus. I'm glad they didn't keep him up on the roster all of this season, and it wouldn't surprise me if he graduated to the NHL as a 19-year-old.
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The Kings should consider signing a vet UFA defenseman on a 1-year deal. They need to do whatever is best for Bjornfot to reach the ceiling of his potential. I doubt that is playing a full season in the NHL at 19 years of age.

I really don't care if he is good enough to win a spot on a crap team next season.
 
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Ziggy Stardust said:
I get that, but Bjornfot excelling as a rookie on a largely inexperienced team in Ontario shows that he’s making strides to be an NHLer next season. It’s possible they give that spot to Clague, but Ontario is getting crowded and they need to test and challenge some of these guys to perform at a higher level, which is exactly what they’ve done with Mikey Anderson.
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By all accounts, Bjornfot was on the top pairing and played big minutes for the Reign. He adapted fairly quickly to the AHL and played well and I suspect he's going to get a long look this upcoming season. None of this 9 game contract protection BS next season, it's going to be 20+ games. The kid has the goods. It's obvious watching him that he has "it" going for him. Can someone who attended a decent amount of Reign games chime in and tell us who the best defender on the team was and where Bjornfot ranked among the rest of the D? He may not play 80 games for the Kings next season, but I'd bet money that he's going to play 30+ unless he completely flops and I just don't see that happening. Think if he just turned into a younger more mobile Rob Scuderi and how killer that would be. His upside is way higher than that of course.

There are 492 defensemen games available to be divided among them. Let's say best case the right side is locked up and Drew, Walker and Roy are healthy and lock up 240 of those games. Who are your left side defensemen? Hutton or a bridge defender like him and is that an 80 game player? I doubt it. Macdermid? Ideally he's your #7 and he's should not be playing as frequently as this past season nor should he unless he really makes strides. That leaves you with Mikey, Bjornfot and Clague to split roughly 150 games between them. I could see that happening when you factor in a rotation due to struggles and health.
 
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I get the feeling Toby is going to play 40ish NHL games next season. But though I think he'd be served well by staying playing top pairing minutes in the AHL and further developing his offensive touch and all-situations dominance--I think he's going to steal a spot and not look back. If the guy that showed up last preseason shows up, he's not going anywhere, for better or worse. But I'm with K17 on this one in that I'm not sure what's best for his upside. I feel like being "The guy" in ontario is needed for him to take another great leap, but that he's good enough to play in the NHL now. But you never know. Look how good Mikey Anderson looked when he came up after looking up-and-down in the AHL.
 
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If Bjornfot is one of our six best defensemen in camp next season (and I suspect he will be), what do you do?

Do you send him back to the AHL simply because of his age/experience? Or does the best man deserve roster spot?

This is an interesting dilemma with prospects sometimes. Personally I wouldn't want him getting too many minutes in the NHL. I'd rather him be on the top pairing in the AHL, or getting limited minutes in the NHL. Too heavy of an NHL workload can really bog down a young player IMO.
 
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Raccoon Jesus said:
I get the feeling Toby is going to play 40ish NHL games next season. But though I think he'd be served well by staying playing top pairing minutes in the AHL and further developing his offensive touch and all-situations dominance--I think he's going to steal a spot and not look back. If the guy that showed up last preseason shows up, he's not going anywhere, for better or worse. But I'm with K17 on this one in that I'm not sure what's best for his upside. I feel like being "The guy" in ontario is needed for him to take another great leap, but that he's good enough to play in the NHL now. But you never know. Look how good Mikey Anderson looked when he came up after looking up-and-down in the AHL.
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I think this is fair. I think they just need to see how it goes and decide based on how he progresses. By all means they should have a plan, but they need to be prepared to change it as the season develops.
 
If he looks great in camp let him play. If he starts faultering send him to the AHL. Same with Anderson, Roy, and any other player. Some players need extra time to simmer some just get it and excel. Won’t know til we try it.
as mentioned above seems like her right side is pretty much figured out.

It looks like I left so it will be very young.I have no problem with MacD hanging around on the team had a low salary and acting as a seventh defenseman that can be put into games that we need a little extra muscle.

Between Anderson, Bjornfot and Claque we have all kind of youth for our future but we may need that veteran to help ease the burden.

No imagine if we could add Drysdale to the defense core.
 
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In a normal year, I would agree there is a benefit to playing top pairing minutes in the AHL rather than the NHL. However, if he plays 30 games in Sweden (and gets big minutes), then I would be OK with him playing 50 games in the NHL without the AHL action, even at reduced usage.
 
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Prntscrn said:
Haha powerplay and a shift so he just got on from the bench
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This needs to be your avatar man

upload_2020-8-13_12-34-50.jpeg
 
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Kings are not too far off from being a good team. I'd rather have him have experience on a mediocre kings team rather than have an inexperienced dman on a good kings team.

The way you make your team better is by adding good players, not hiding them until they're good. Seems counterintuitive to shelter good players from a bad team and expecting the bad team to magically get better by that logic lol wtf.
 
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I think he's going to be on the opening roster, whenever that is. If he's paired with Doughty, which is what Drew wants, I think you'll see the Drew who played at a high level while breaking in rookies. The last couple of seasons has been frustrated (and frustrating) Drew trying to compensate for and not trusting garbage partners and his game suffering for it. Depending on if they sign a bridge veteran LD, I can see TB, Clague and Anderson playing 50 to 60 games each in a quasi rotation.
 
Our left side will have a combined 13 games of NHL experience at the start of next season.

Bjornfot - Doughty
Anderson - Roy
Clague - Walker

No time like the present to get some experience though!
 
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kilowatt said:
Our left side will have a combined 13 games of NHL experience at the start of next season.

Bjornfot - Doughty
Anderson - Roy
Clague - Walker

No time like the present to get some experience though!
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Only 2 of the 3 will be up in the lineup during the season. They will rotate between NHL and AHL time. LA is going to fill the LD with an experienced veteran. Think someone like Edmundson or Dillon
 
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The Lukeman said:
Only 2 of the 3 will be up in the lineup during the season. They will rotate between NHL and AHL time. LA is going to fill the LD with an experienced veteran. Think someone like Edmundson or Dillon
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Yep, for the sake of fantasy, let's pretend that next season will be an 82 game season. That's 246 LD side man games available. You have to think that all of our righties won't all play 80+ games for whatever reason, so there's going to be anywhere from 10 to 20 additional games available for defenders who can play both left and right sides. If you sign a vet LD, you assume he's going to be good for 70+ games. If he plays 75 games and there are some games missed by some of the RD, there's going to be around 180 or so games available to split between Clague, Anderson, Bjornfot and MacDermid. If you give Macdermid (1 out of every 4 games for toughness etc) about 20 games, that still leaves 50+ games each for the rookies to develop. It's perfect that Ontario is so close and you can shuttle these players down quickly if there are any struggles. I don't think that kind of rotation would hurt the players at all and if one, two or all three play so well you can't take them out of the lineup, all the better.
 
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cyclones22 said:
Yep, for the sake of fantasy, let's pretend that next season will be an 82 game season. That's 246 LD side man games available. You have to think that all of our righties won't all play 80+ games for whatever reason, so there's going to be anywhere from 10 to 20 additional games available for defenders who can play both left and right sides. If you sign a vet LD, you assume he's going to be good for 70+ games. If he plays 75 games and there are some games missed by some of the RD, there's going to be around 180 or so games available to split between Clague, Anderson, Bjornfot and MacDermid. If you give Macdermid (1 out of every 4 games for toughness etc) about 20 games, that still leaves 50+ games each for the rookies to develop. It's perfect that Ontario is so close and you can shuttle these players down quickly if there are any struggles. I don't think that kind of rotation would hurt the players at all and if one, two or all three play so well you can't take them out of the lineup, all the better.
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Don’t forget we have to expose a defenseman for the expansion draft, so someone’s gonna have to get some more games in.

MacDermid is closest with 25 games needed to reach 70 over two seasons.

And if Clague play fewer than 40 next year, he exempt ;)

There will be some funny maths next season with rookies.
 
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