I would say they were playing the odds. It is much more likely to have an injury on defense, especially with an old guy like Elder, than not having any injuries on defense. Sometimes rare events happen.
Ontario Reign 22-23 thread. Nothin' lasts forever, even cold November Reign
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Herby
How could Blake have known?
I do wonder if Toby was just one of those guys who peaked earlier than most, he isn’t a bad player by any stretch but he does nothing at a high level, but is adequate at a lot of things. But it’s still unbelievable how this guy was handled. He makes the team out of camp at 18, spends his entire age 19 and 20 seasons in the NHL and then ends up in the AHL in his age 21 season.
Teams just don’t usually do stuff like that.
Teams just don’t usually do stuff like that.
This gets thrown around a lot, but I find it extremely unlikely that any owner would hire a GM without a well-laid-out and exhaustive plan. If he doesn't have a plan, Blake must be a goddamn genius, because he has this team at the top of the conference and still has one of the better prospect pools league-wide.
Just because the play isn't what we might want or expect certainly doesn't mean there isn't one. I'd love to see it myself because there are a lot of head-scratching decisions. But I can absolutely say one exists and they are sticking to it. GM's are stubborn animals.
I think that injury really set him back, and I think he tried to come back way too early from it because of all the other injuries at the time. It's obvious he wasn't the same after that, and he's pretty damn good out there right now and is getting back to where he was. The AHL move was meant to get him back on track by giving him top minutes, I'm guessing.
And I know we always complain about how guys are handled, but the only defenseman in that draft year to play more games than Bjornfot is Seider, who has only played 25 more games. No one else is even close. Hell, only 10 players in that draft class have played more NHL games than him, and one is Kaliyev.
- May 9, 2014
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I agree. I think though that people writing him off forget how young he is. There is still a lot of upside and he will get still get much stronger physically.
Frolov 6'3
Unregistered User
Raccoon Jesus
We were right there
Especially when the only LHD in front of him are Anderson and the shambling corpse of Alex Edler.
Herby
How could Blake have known?
I think often times we just automatically assume that his age=upside, and that isn't always the case. I was pretty high on Bjornfot a couple of years ago when he made the team out of camp at 18 (had a nice season in the AHL) and followed it up asa decent 3rd pairing defender at 19 during the Covid year. I expected him to continue to progress to the point where he could be a really good 2nd pairing guy down the road, but the reality is he is still basically the same player now that he was at 19, and if a player doesn't develop much in his age 20 and 21 seasons, its tough to see a big leap at 22 or 23. The idea to send him to the AHL this season was supposedly to develop his offensive game, but he is scoring at a significantly less rate than he did in the same league as an 18 year old.
I don't think he is a bust, he is the same thing he has been for a few years now, a decent 3rd pairing defender, which is certainly better than Edler. There are plenty of guys playing in the league who are just like TB, decent enough defensive zone IQ guys who provide no offense but play mostly mistake free hockey and are capable of chipping the puck out of the zone
All The Kings Men
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Herby
How could Blake have known?
That was the case that was made here by many people who defended this extremely unusual development decision to return a player to the AHL after 2 seasons in the NHL at 19/20. Lots of minutes, in lots of situations.
But maybe that was just people coming up with excuses to justify the Kings weird development decisions with young players. We did after all have many here who defended putting Turcotte there as well.
Yes, but the cases that are made here have zero to do with why the organization may have really done that.
Personally, I think it's because he never quite got back from his injury and they wanted to get him prime playing time to get his game back where it was. Doesn't mean it's right, just a possibility.
It's also very difficult to quantify how weird or strange some of the decisions are, given none of us actually know what's going on day-to-day in the organization. Not every decision will pan out and some will end up being flat-out wrong, all it means is at the time it was the consensus in the organization - or at least the consensus of those who matter. I'm sure many decisions (such as Turcotte) are discussed and pored over, and both sides are looked at. I'm sure there were some that didn't agree with his decision to leave college and to wait and see what happened with the pandemic. That's always part of the process.
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I don’t think the offensive upside will come much now, but I think there is upside as a dependable puck moving shutdown guy. I think as he gets stronger he will get better in that role. He needs NHL games though, the AHL isn’t cutting it.
mysterman2
Registered User
Lias Andersson should throw his medal into the stands after that epic fail.
Herby
How could Blake have known?
The strange and unorthodox moves can certainly be criticized, especially when four years out those moves have resulted in two guys on the AHL/NHL fringe. One of them being a top 5 pick and the other being a guy good enough to make the team out of his first camp at 18.
It wasn’t Covid concerns, if there were Covid concerns then none of the other teams would have kept their players in college. The signing was before Covid become world altering and had the Kings thought an NCAA return was optimal they could have taken the wait and see approach with Covid and signed him if the college seasons were cancelled, which is the route other teams took. It’s just the Kings (more so than any other team) believe very strongly in having young players (u-20) in the AHL learning their system at the expense of developing in more traditional and proven places, and it seems with the deployment down there much of the focus is churning out NHL system players but in the process limiting a players ceiling.
I don’t agree with everything that @bland thinks, but he is 100% right that to develop higher end guys (especially offensively) you need to put them in an environment where they can gain confidence but also play their game without the worry of making mistakes. Most teams would have had QB up his 18 year old season, stuck him with a solid veteran like Carter and maybe Brown and let him play his game in a top 6 situation where the team was not trying to make the playoffs. Instead he’s in the AHL, kind of has a meh season as one of the youngest to ever play in that league and then is forced to play the next season next to AA and an even more declined Brown on a team committed to making the playoffs, where his learning mistakes were magnified, often resulting in his benching or being scratched. Tough to blame TM his mandate last season was to win, not develop through mistakes, where as the season before it wasn’t.
Turcotte pulled from school is not something most teams would have done, honestly probably not a single one (ok maybe Winnipeg). There were 10 NCAA bound players taken in the Top 32 picks, only Turcotte and Zegras were pulled after their freshman year, and Zegras played the majority of the season in the NHL and was an offensively dominant player at the AHL level. Of the other 8 players, 6 are currently NHL regulars, one is in the AHL (pick 30) and one is still in college (pick 31). Turcotte was never going to be the type of player we expected on draft night (I think most everyone agrees with that by now), but if he put on muscle and added 10 lbs while gaining some offensive confidence with a better sophomore year and avoids getting lit up by professional players as a teenager is he likely a better option at 3C at this moment than Lizotte? I think it’s very likely that is the case. And the fact that he’s not is largely on the Kings decision makers, and they should have known better.
Bjornfot, his AHL assignment at 18 is a bit more acceptable than QB’s and certainly Turcotte’s, teams have had guys who played at a high level in Europe at 17 jump to the AHL at 18. I’d personally prefer to let guys grow their ceiling a bit more over there than limit it in the AHL but it wasn’t outrageous. But the recent stuff kind of is, how many guys play 100+ NHL games as basically an NHL regular for 2 seasons before age 21 and then end up being sent to the minors and came out of it for the better? How many other teams handle Bjornfot (demote him for a corpse) after 2 seasons as an NHL regular? That part was highly highly unusual.
Kupari is another one where now in hindsight maybe another year overseas has him come to NA to learn the system as a more offensively confident player with a higher long-term ceiling if he has a big age 19 season in Finland. Now, similarly to Bjornfot, teams do bring over teenagers with his kind of pro experience, not always but sometimes. But if it’s another 50/50 decision like TB and you couple it with 20/80 and 2/98 decisions like QB and AT its just more evidence that the Kings just really are hyper-aggressive with guys getting in the AHL.
Do you think the heavy AHL usage has been an overall net positive or negative for the Kings 1st rounders?
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Choralone
Registered User
It's been me asserting this based on what Yawney said over the summer about him in an interview in the Athletic:
"I’d like to see him make a few more mistakes with the puck – where he is skating and trying to make a play.”
He also talked about consistency. Perhaps I read a little too much into a quote?
Herby
How could Blake have known?
Nope, not at all. And I’m sure others read that quote as well and that is why so many people brought up “improving his offensive game” to rationalize the decision to demote him.
And it makes sense, if there was any part of his game that the Kings were looking to improve it certainly would have been the offensive side of it. But unfortunately it hasn’t really happened for him.
It’s just so unusual to see a player be developed this way, normally when a young player breaks through and is an NHL regular for 2 seasons he is an NHL’er until he retires, and if he ends up back in the minors it means something went way off course.
Surf Nutz
Hockey Remote Viewer With A Frozen Finger
After thinking on this, I think it's more net positive, but not overwhelmingly so.
I think Vilardi really benefitted, it helped him finally understand what he needed to do and he took off. I don't think JAD is who he is now without it, I think he would have crashed out if he was put right up on the big club. I think it's given Spence a tremendous about of confidence. I do think it benefitted Kupari slightly, although being overseas wouldn't have hurt him either. I don't think he's an NHL scorer, and it helped him find his niche quicker.
I don't think it made much of a difference either way for a few guys. Fagemo is just below NHL regular level, but he was always a tweener guy. I don't think it changed Byfield's trajectory one bit, it may have helped him get back up to speed from his injury but that's all. Same with Bjornfot, I think he'd be about the same or slightly better, but it did help him get back to game speed.
Turcotte is obviously the negative, that decision didn't work out at all. I still feel that if no pandemic is going on he stays down another year, but in any case the AHL was a terrible place for him. Now he's stuck there for the time being. The biggest waste of an asset in a while. I also think it's the absolutely wrong place for Clarke, so if they go that route next year it's nothing but a risk because he won't learn a damn thing there.
The Kings have done an OK job with identifying pathways for prospects, but their mistakes have been glaring.
lumbergh
It was an idea. I didn't say it was a good idea.
I agree with you in most of this, but I wouldn’t be surprised if Clarke spent substantial time in Ontario next season. There’s still plenty of physical and mental maturity to be gained, and the Kings should not be in a hurry with Clarke.
It's nice to see Helenius on the score sheet and pick up a 5 for fighting.
Now, is he any good when he does drop the gloves or is he a punching bag or a wrestler?
Now, is he any good when he does drop the gloves or is he a punching bag or a wrestler?
mysterman2
Registered User
so far not that impressive but he does have some basic other skills.
Major item from last night not being discussed......
Grans and Fagemo both healthy scratches. Make of that what you will.....
Noticed that and also noticed it was not talked about post-game.. Who knows, it could be for another move which we will find out soon enough.
mysterman2
Registered User
Those two were mentioned in a lot of the rumors so does make sense.
It have to be someone with term and some game right? Blake said he was looking for a bottom 6 guy with size… Tom Wilson?
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