Nobody has ever, ever, been developed by being benched in the big league. Literally no one in the history of the NHL. NHL coaches aren't expected to develop players either. When they make roster decisions it's all about the short-term because they're evaluated on recent results and they can get fired anytime their teams start sliding. And that's true whether they're coaching contenders or not.
Sutter gives a short leash to players like ruzicka and dube because he thinks what they bring is less valuable overall than useless plugs like lucic. what people call having a short leash with young players is just that, and it's not a sutter thing. it's a "every dino in the league" thing. heck, hartley was arguably even worse and he was coaching in rebuild years.
Sutter is a dinosaur who happens to bring and establish good systems, nothing more.
Plus, the whole point of the AHL is that their systems can translate to the ones used by the big clubs. Otherwise, it'd be a waste of financial resources to maintain. That's why AHL's NHLe tends to be more accurate IIRC.
…we quite literally have two examples on our team in the previous season and a half, where Kylington was benched an ENTIRE season and played the next one a changed man, and Ruzicka who went from a bottom liner putting up respectable numbers with effort and consistency issues, and who struggled using his size as an advantage, to this offensive tank we have today. Just last game he had two examples of just pushing his hip into someone and sending them flying to maintain puck control and pushing his man off the puck to cause our game winner. Find one example of that happening last year. Your also currently talking about the development path of Shane Wright so far by the way for examples on other teams, I’d bet you a fair amount of money he turns out alright.
Do you think the guys who dont play just fly around and eat popcorn? You participate in line drills, battle plays, system/special team set ups, as well as all the behind the scene work. “NHL coaches don’t develop players” tells me you honestly think a coaches job stops at putting together lines, and literally all that happens is the games you see on TV. Putting together lines and actually coaching a hockey game is like 10-20% of the role. Honest question, have you ever played in a competitive hockey league?
Also Lucic played 5 minutes last night, has any of Dube, Ruzicka or any young player ever gotten that treatment from Sutter? Or is Lucic just younger than I realized?
