Byfield was not a typical #2. The majority of draft guides and podcast had him a top 3 pick that needed time to develop.
Then Covid hit and the OHL shut down and the kid was forced into the AHL were he struggled at first then started to show great flashes the last half of a year. He was then placed into the NHL for a while 6 games as an 18 year old where he was obviously overmatched.
He returned the next year and was looking like he took a massive step forward in preseason and blows up an ankle missing a massive amount of time. Gets sent to the AHL upon return were he is rusty but looks better as he gets some games under him then bang, right back to the NHL and thrown into a team fighting for a playoff spot with less then star wingers.
We saw inconsistencies, poor decisions, and we saw some flashes that made everyone sit up and pay attention.
The dude was a longer term project from the get go
He missed an opportunity to tear up the OHL(Covid) and went straight to a mens league
He has a grand total of 43 AHL games under his belt and 46 NHL games a majority of which was after a gruesome ankle injury and Covid and paired with duds. He did not get the whole Stutzle top lines, massive PP minutes, make mistake treatment.
I think we can give the kid a bit more rope.
Well, thanks for the good response.
I think this is a bit of a reach though, there is no way the Kings would have expected him to be at this point, he is behind, probably a year behind (that will be determined this year). When people said he wasn't your typical top 2 pick I think they were saying he wasn't going to be McDavid or Matthews, or even a Laine and Eichel, not that he'd be playing at a replacement level in his 2nd year with the organization and big question marks entering year 3.
But if you are right and he was this big of a project, in a cap league that gets younger and younger each year taking a guy with a 4-5 year development path at #2 overall (assuming they were aware as you suggest) then this was a poor selection for the Kings to make. You pass up on multiple years (maybe all the years?) of an ELC while he is developing, you also miss out on getting a player that is going to be able to contribute along side a Kopitar or Doughty. If Byfield takes until his 4th or 5th season to develop into anything of significance where will Doughty and Kopitar be at? Surely by keeping those guys and using the #2 pick the Kings expected to get at least a couple years of crossover of the eras?
These types of picks happened more decades ago, when the UFA age was 31 and players weren't making as much of an impact at 19-22 as they are today.
show me the #2 pick that had their league shut down due to a pandemic
Byfield like a lot of picks from his draft, have a different development curve.
Why was a #2 pick coming off a dominant draft-year even going back to the OHL in the first place?
Byfield had a higher PPG in his draft year in the CHL than Schevnikov, Hischier, Patrick and many other recent high picks who made the NHL as 18 year olds. The Kings had a clear spot at 2C available where he could have spent 50+ games playing mostly with Jeff Carter in a perfect environment on a bad team.
But instead the plan is to send him to the OHL? This is yet another situation with the Kings development choices where you just ask yourself, if you had 8 different teams making this decision and 6 or 7 are making one and the Kings are making another when is it fair to criticize the Kings when they lag behind? It's the same situation with Turcotte, at what point do these unorthodox decisions start to be criticized, it seems for some (not you) it is really going to be never. You still have some referring to guys entering their 6th season in the organization as kids. The "barely old enough to buy a beer" crowd will say that its
I tend to agree that Byfield's stagnation up to this point is mostly on Blake, and some of it is due to injuries. However, I think there are several posters who are frustrated with Byfield's ice time and the situations in which he is deployed by McLellan when Byfield is in the lineup.
McLellan may have been given directions to make the playoffs, or else. If this is the case, Robitaille and Blake shoulder even more of the blame. I think its a fool's errand to "just make the playoffs" while having to ride Kopitar, Danault, Quick, etc. to do it.
Injuries have fast-forwarded the development of some of the defensemen. Perhaps a similar circumstance would be useful for the development of forwards? It may be the only thing that forces the issue with this management team.
Just the playoffs is what they wanted. Danault and Arvidson weren't brought in if they thought the team was going to miss the playoffs, but everyone knew they weren't good enough to make any kind of run. But they also built on that pretty well this summer and with the development of other youth.
I've been critical of Blake's drafting and development decisions (especially in round 1) but I actually think he has done an exceptional job adjusting on the fly and building a pretty good team despite those two huge draft blunders hanging over his head. I think the reality is that Blake probably realized after the 2020-2021 season that the ROI with Vilardi and Turcotte was going to be a disaster and acted accordingly to address that and again has done a good job since then. The Danault signing (even if some wanted to go with more youth) was an excellent signing. The Fiala trade, in which Blake flipped one of his best draft picks as GM as the key piece for an 85 point forward was a great transaction with the pick and the trade. Brock Faber would go ridiculously higher in a re-draft right now, and Blake deserves all the credit for what he turned a mid 2nd rounder into in such a short time. Same thing with the Arvy trade. I have respect for a guy who can make adjustments on the fly and not get married to prospects based on where they were drafted. But it is also still fair to question the weird decisions made with the 1st rounders. Some people are capable of seeing the good and bad, and others think Blake has never done a thing wrong.
