Sure it may be due to losses on the blueline, but even before the injuries, it seemed as though plenty of young dmen were put in positions to see a lot of playing time.
I don’t agree with Kaliyev’s usage on the PP, but I think putting him with Lizotte and Lemieux was a good way not to put too much pressure on him, which is not too dissimilar to how they eased the likes of Toffoli and Pearson into the lineup.
Some of the young guys who have come in just haven’t shown much, that’s just the sad reality. I wish more guys impressed like Spence has, but for the most part, the forwards beyond Kaliyev have mostly been invisible. Byfield has shown lots of promise, I think he’ll get there eventually, but if there’s any prospect who has really been misused from the current crop, it’s Vilardi.
Now he is the lone player who I could point to and say that he’d likely be able to contribute on a lot of other teams, and I’m afraid that might happen soon.
Well, therein lies the rub, right?
Spence wouldn't have impressed this year in anything but the AHL unless the org's hand was completely forced. How many guys went down before Spence's debut, 10? He came in and right away had games of 24, 25, and 26 friggin minutes, like Durzi did. OF COURSE he's going to show out, he was given all that and PP time.
Byfield's top, in comparison, is 16 minutes. He has 9 games of 14 minutes or more. He has 8 games of less than 10 minutes. He has a total of 18 minutes of PP time.
For the season.
Meanwhile, Stutzle has played over 20 minutes
20 times. He's played over 18
42 times. He has
235 minutes of PP time.
Stutzle has 1375 minutes of playing time this year, Byfield has 448.
Need a playoff team comparison? Ok. Even better, let's use a '3C' from another prominent playoff team, Anton Lundell. 983 minutes of time, 42 on the PP on a LETHAL offensive team where he was drafted as a 'two-way' C and has a better reason for being absolutely buried. But we can't find any better time for QB. Somehow Florida is able to find nearly 4 extra minutes a game for Lundell over Byfield, and their veteran 1C is actually performing. Outside of one game at 12:30, Lundell has NEVER played less than 13 minutes. He's played over 17 19 times, the vast majority of his games are 16-17 minutes with little variance.
You want guys to impress, you have to
give them a chance to impress. That's not at you, none of this is really at you, just venting a general observation of a forum who is wayyyy too okay with saying "yeah but these guys aren't doing anything with their 12 minutes and no PP time".
Byfield is going to get out of this season playing about a quarter of the ice time of his draft mates and next to no PP time. I'd argue he could spend 8 hours a day in the church of Danault watching video and learning but that's a LOT of skating and puck reps vs. good competition to miss. It's okay, I guess he can be a good ol canadian boy and 'earn it.'
Edit: and re: Kaliyev buried on the 4th line I think the only reason most of us were okay-ish with it is because that line found chemistry lightning in a bottle.
