Meant to come back to this because this is a rare topic on this board I actually find very interesting.
It's not a massive oversimplification I repeat - the NHL is not a development league. If you talk to just about anyone in pro hockey circles, especially front office types, coaches, and scouts, you'll be told the same. Up to the NHL, guys can be thrown in leagues they are not ready for and "catch up" on the fly. You can't do that in the NHL.
Of course players don't stop developing, and have to adjust. That's the remaining 10% I was talking about. But a player putting the final touches on his game and undergoing natural progression during his early 20s does not mean the NHL is a development league. What I'm stressing here is, again, the high bar to entry. The hundreds of boxes a player has to check before a team throws him in. Mistakes in juniors, and even minor leagues, can be covered up or mitigated rather easily. Not in the NHL. Mistakes are exposed and exploited in a highly efficient manner by the opposition in the NHL, as we all see on a nightly basis. Mistakes happen to everyone, but players need to be able to identify why a mistake happened and what to do to prevent it in the future. They need to know how to minimize them. Otherwise, they are not ready for the big league, and most coaches will eat them alive.
Raymond last season is an example of a young player who struggled, which is very common. But he had already established himself in the NHL. He had already checked an overwhelming number of those hundreds of boxes. He had already cleared the high bar to entry. He was easily at the 90% mark, despite those struggles. Sending him down was almost certainly never a real option.
As for "the bar," it's a thing, or a lot of things, that are often difficult to see as a fan. How is this kid preparing himself? How fast is he absorbing knowledge? How hard does he go in practice? How much is he paying attention to the fine details that can make or break his performance in a game? How well is he learning from his mistakes? How is he treating his body away from the rink? On the ice, is he executing what he's been told? Is his attitude good enough and does he have enough mental fortitude to get over the humps and survive the valleys? How's his compete level? Etcetera, etcetera.
Now, has Edvinsson cleared that bar? Probably? There's a little room for doubt given the mistakes he was making last time he was up. I would still bet that he is currently ready for the NHL and could make a positive impact, but I can't rule out the possibility that Detroit does have him working on something. More likely, I think it's simply a case of Detroit doing well, being in the playoff hunt, and so if it ain't broke, don't fix it. Because I think we can all agree that when Ed does make it back to Detroit, we want him to have a significant role.
