...Yes we paid a late 2nd for him, but he's a 22 year old kid, coming off a good year in the AHL...
A
relatively good year. He didn't **** the bed last season compared to previous years, but you'd hope the first semi-decent year from a 1st round draft pick wouldn't come in the 4th year of playing professionally. It should also be noted that he was not a top pairing defenseman on the team.
...stuck in a defensively strong Sharks system under a coach who's known for handling rookie d-men very poorly...
Mueller was passed on the depth chart by Joakim Ryan (7th rounder), Tim Heed (UFA), and Dylan DeMelo (6th rounder), with Julius Bergman (2nd rounder) right there with him. He wasn't stuck, and it had very little to do with DeBoer. Mueller was given every chance to develop and he didn't. Yes, he was rushed to the NHL, but if it takes someone with the supposed talent of a 1st round draft pick 3 years to recover enough to then become an arguably decent AHL defenseman, maybe it's just not meant to be. He was consistently ranked high on the prospect lists due to his pedigree, and the defensively strong system was in spite of him, not because of him.
We have first hand experience with DeBoer with how he handled Larsson. The second he was gone, Larsson flourished and now look where he is. Hopefully the same thing can happen with Mueller. Aside from Colton White and Yegor Rykov (who are unknowns to where they'll end up), we have no LHD prospects who we know could play in the NHL. Mueller may never be a point producer, but he's big, fast, and mobile enough to be a 2nd pairing guy in his prime.
Again, Mueller's development, or lack thereof, has very little to do with DeBoer. When DeBoer came in, the top defensemen for the Sharks were Vlasic-Burns-Braun-Martin, so there weren't any meaningful minutes to be had for a young defenseman looking for playing time. He was better served to spend time in the AHL, where he ultimately underachieved.
But basically, the thing is, "2nd pairing in his prime" is what his ceiling was when he was drafted 4 years ago. More than a few Sharks fans didn't care for the pick because there were prospects that projected higher at the time, and as the years have gone by, Mueller hasn't proven the doubters wrong. Based on his professional career thus far, he's likely to top out as a 5-8 defenseman on a lottery team for a couple years. He'll probably show flashes for the Devils here and there, but I wouldn't be surprised if he's back in Europe by the end of the decade.