A lot of that stems from the fact that there are 20 year olds and even 19 year olds playing in the NHL right now on worse teams and with more points than Laf in half as much games. I'm not one for paranoia, but I think the concern is warranted for a guy who went #1 in the draft and has more penalty minutes than points to date.
No two humans are equal. Not siblings, not even "identical" twins and certainly not completely different non related humans. So comparison is only helpful if a number of variables are factored in. Team, teammates, coach, style, development path etc.... And the most important, development is non-linear. Some players like say Makar, McDavid, Crosby etc.. do most of their developing right away. Shot out of a cannon basically. But their development curve flattens relatively soon. Meaning they make a huge jump early and then level off to some degree. They continue to "develop" sure, but at a slower rate, and often, just through experience rather than physical or skills. Other players take time. Have some invisible years, and then a number of years later finally piece it all together. Some take a more stop and start approach. It's all relative. SO it's very difficult to tell what a "bust" is.
I would say that expectations are a big factor as well. The hype and expectations surrounding Laf were more than there should have been. He wasn't Crosby or Ovechkin, or Matthews or even for that matter Tavares and he shouldn't have been hyped as such. Same thing happening to Shane Wright, all though I do think Wright will be a more effective NHL player out of the gate, in part because I think his positives are that he's a complete player rather than just a high skill player. His skill level is high, but not Crosby high, but his compete and complete game level is balanced and high, like a John Toews kind of. So he will be a great NHL player, lesser fantasy player, but can possibly be a winning player. Toews himself I think only scored a PPG or more pace two out of all his NHL seasons. Yet he's still going to go down as a great player. Maybe HOF, not sure. But great player none the less.
Laf is a bit different. He's more skill based, higher ceiling potentially, but needs to achieve and raise those skills in order to impact games at a higher level. So it might just take him longer to put it all together. To get comfortable in his adult body, to get comfortable adjusting to playing against men, bigger than he was, rather than JR players who were generally less physically mature than he was.
Look at Elias Lindholm, Joe Pavelski, Brett Burns, Marchand and a number of other players. They went years without doing much of anything. Showing occasional flashes, but not really hinting at the players they would eventually become. Because they didn't just start out like Raymond or Seider or Zegras.
