The counter point to this is continuing to gain real in-game experience in a legit offensive role, and maybe even more important, continuing to gain confidence in your game.
I think a good example of the importance of being put in prime roles, and gaining confidence by dominating, is the “relative age effect” in hockey (and many sports). Worth Googling, but basically for countries who do Jan 1st hockey cutoffs, kids born in January-March are ~3x more likely to make top level leagues, make the NHL, etc. than those born Oct-Dec. This is because they’re older than their peers, thus
temporarily better, so they get prime offensive roles and lots of ice time, and
this leads to them becoming actually long term better. Meanwhile the youngest kids are always outmatched, get put into supporting roles with less ice time, and just become supporting players.
Obviously it’s more complex than that, you need to be challenged, you need good coaching in practices, etc. But keeping a player in a league where they’re so outmatched they get little ice time, few offensive chances/responsibilities, and basically just get dominated … pretty risky, not something we often are working out well. I personally don’t think great facilities, conversations with NHL vets, etc. outweighs the damage from “I’m barely playing, and when I do step on the ice I get dominated.”
That post mentions Beniers. Beniers was a very good player for Michigan in 2021/22, a PPG player, but instead of going straight to Seattle, he went back to Michigan. Became the team’s best player (IMO), lead them in points and +/-, then came to the NHL with great star experience and lots of confidence, ready to immediately contribute. Seems weird to try to draw a parallel between Beniers’ path and Wright’s - going back to the OHL would be a much more similar path to what Beniers did for Wright.
