TM does do that to an extent, and it's maddening at times. Especially with Edler, bless his greybeard heart.
But no one forced Bjornfot on him, they could have played others. Lizotte either, he was still only 22 when TM took over. I don't think either of those guys played like vets right off the bat, they just played better than others. He put Mikey Anderson right up on the top pairing at 21 where he got big minutes when he had a perfectly good veteran Maatta to put there.
Aside from Trevor Lewis and Kyle Clifford, which regular vets did Lizotte get more playing time than? These were all the forwards Lizotte had averaged more ice time than in his rookie season:
Martin Frk
Mike Amadio
Trevor Moore
Gabriel Vilardi
Carl Grundstrom
Nikolai Prokhorkin
Trevor Lewis
Austin Wagner
Kyle Clifford
Matt Luff
Jaret Anderson-Dolan
Tim Schaller
He beat out mostly journeymen and rookies.
And even so, he averaged less than 14 minutes, which is great for a 3rd liner. I'm not going to bemoan how they deployed Lizotte; I only bring up the players he "beat out" to show that it's not like McLellan saw him as something special over a collection of vets. He had his pick of the litter.
Bjornfot played 3 games his rookie season.
Anderson played 6 games. And Doughty has said he wanted to play with him.
I also have not seen any evidence that any of the prospects are frustrated. And while there is an overdone tendency to have prospects take their time, it's not that bad. Young guys are slowly taking roles and potentially jobs. I'm trying to think of prospects where overdoing the AHL thing screwed them up, there aren't many. Clague I would say, although he's not done much in MTL or BUF. I think Andersson for sure, totally mishandled. I don't throw guys like Madden and Fagemo in there because I don't think they've shown they are that good.
You must have missed the interviews (I think it was ATKM who posted it) where McLellan said the players in the AHL are getting frustrated at not getting opportunity.
Some of is the Kings methodology, but some of it is also our impatience as fans. I was beyond frustrated with Kupari because they kept rolling him out on the 3rd line. Surprisingly, putting him on the 4th line was actually putting him in a position to succeed and I never would have fathomed that. I thought they were ruining a perfectly good NHL scorer, but moving him to the 4th brought out parts of Kupari's games he probably didn't even know he had. That was a fantastic move.
I'm completely okay with prospects being put in "lesser roles". I've said time and time again I don't believe in just giving every prospect top-tier ice time.
My issue has been the lack of flexibility in how this gets applied. Not every player has to play on the bottom-six. Some players may adjust well getting more opportunity and trust - if a player struggles, it can always be dialed back. And for some unknown reason, they are completely okay with "pairing" a rookie defenseman with a vet and give them a ton of minutes, but they don't have the same comfort putting a rookie with a responsible player like Kopitar, or Danault. Where the extra time and work with these vets could help elevate their game.
It's why I wasn't worried about Vilardi. He got ice time in the top six when he was finally healthy. Then he struggled. The responsibility was dialed back. This season, he went to new heights. Was it perfect? Well, debatable. Indicators suggest they were ready to healthy scratch him to start the season, and it took injuries and an opportunity for him to show them how much he grew in the preseason.
The thing is, I love what McLellan's doing with the lines right now (although I'm never a fan of a "kid line"). This is what I was calling for them to do last year.
They have a lot of youth who can be rotated out with competent veteran players to see who sticks and who doesn't. They need to balance out using their skill to "compete for the playoffs" while also "building for the future."
And I know the argument is "The NHL isn't a developmental league." But nobody is a finished product when they come into the NHL. The issue is if they are capable of handling the rigors of the NHL, and continuing to build their knowledge, experiences, and skillsets that the current lineup is starting to approach fulfilling now.