Yeah expectations are generally quite low for him this year on here. I think there’s only a couple of us willing to say something and we’re always generating a ton of pushback lol.
I think he’s been disappointing and it’s wrong to blame it all on the coach and/or coaching decisions (line mates/system). It absolves him of responsibility when 80% of his performance is determined by him. And that goes for every single player that’s ever played.
When a kid is this young, a coaches decisions on deployment and their guidance in helping a kid improve their play and correct their mistakes matters. Prospects rarely step in and are ready to perform in this league without much guidance and development. We're talking about a 20 year old kid who has spent his whole hockey playing life playing a very different style of hockey in Europe.
Let's look at Michkov as an example. To start his career he was playing with guys like Konecny and Tippett and his numbers were really good and made a lot of people wonder if he was better than Bedard. Then Torts moved him down into the bottom 6 to play with players he has no chemistry with. After that happened, including tonight's goal he has 3 points in his last ten games. Sound familiar to anyone you know?
Of course some blame belongs with Leo for not just sucking it up and figuring it out himself but these teams pay development staffs to help transitioning young players work on their mistakes to foster their development. Sometimes a head coach is hired with the express goal of developing the youth on a young rebuilding team.
The issue seems to be that 1) Leo needs better strength and conditioning; 2 Leo is playing without confidence and doesn't seem to have any chemistry with his linemates including the guy he's played most of his NHL career with: 3) Leo keeps making the same mistakes.
As to 1, that can't really improve in a meaningful sense until the offseason and we all hope his offseason strength/conditioning training pays off big.
2) there's a lot of intangibles that go into fixing a player's confidence but ultimately the best thing that could help would be a better environment in the locker room and more pucks going in off goals or assists from the kid. But as to chemistry, I mean Leo has been stapled to Killorn going back to last season and it's a big enough sample to say pretty confidently that they do not have any chemistry with each other. But the pairing persists because Killorn is a veteran. Yet that veteran presence seems to be of zero benefit.
The third issue, his repeating the same mistakes, to me, is an issue shared between Leo and the coaches. Yes he needs to try new approaches on his own, but it doesn't seem that he's getting coached on which approaches would work best for his physical stature and playstyle. So he shows up every game trying the same things over and over and making the same mistakes. I think you're underselling the importance of coaching in developing a young player's habits and tendencies.
