Its not ridiculous one bit. Gimme a damn break. He had nothing left to prove there regardless of an NHL season or not. You do better and stop being ignorant.
Of course Ranger fans would be devastated if he broke his wrist, but there's still a very low probability of breaking your wrist even though we just saw one. Anyways, most were against it once the timeline for the NHL season was released. But wanting him to play in some meaningful games before a 10 month-layoff leading into his NHL debut wasn't selfish, give me a break with that shit.
Meaningful games? Cmon Thirty One. He has dominated this tournament. Canada is loaded. How many “meaningful” games are they playing in this tournament? 2? 3? You think playing in this tournament where he is the superior player on the superior team is really going to make some significant difference in his preparation for the NHL season? A 2-3 week tournament? Yes I do think its a combination* of some being selfish in wanting to watch him play AND some misguided belief that playing in this tournament is some necessity for his upcoming rookie year at the NHL level.
We can debate what the word meaningful means, but I think playing competitive hockey would have been of some benefit. We see the difference in some teams in the WJC where the players have been playing vs. the teams where that's not the case. There will be some of that in the NHL too. If the logistics made sense (they didn't) I would have liked for him to come in game-practiced so that's not another thing he has to adjust to in his first few weeks in the league.
Agree to disagree here then. Because pointing to say the Russians as a team who has players who have been “playing” is somewhat of a misleading argument. The Russians have been playing for 2-3 months worth of games. Lafreniere would be getting 2-3 weeks worth of games in. I just dont buy that would have some large impact on his performance going into this camp. This kid has “it”, he has performed at every level, and I believe he will be ready to go.
