So, I have some thoughts on the whole Byfield vs. Stutzle debate and some of them have already been brought up but bear with me as I am trying to get to a certain point.
First off, I was in the camp that had a very difficult time choosing which one I would rather have for the Kings in 2020. I think it is safe to say that Stutzle was seen to be the one that has a good upside and is likely to be more productive in the shorter term whereas Byfield had higher upside with bigger bust potential and the upside would be theoretically reached on a longer timeframe. I was quite ok with the pick considering where we were-a team with several remaining Cup winners that was racking up young pieces. Positionally, we had an aging Kopitar, an injured Vilardi and Turcotte who was projected to be a good piece but not clear cut #1C upside.
The issue I see behind this whole debate has to do with the selection, trajectory, team objective and development. I still don't have a problem with the selection and how this has progressed. It's quite understandable for people to be satisfied having a player that has progressed quite nicely like Stutzle and to be envious of that when their player is progressing slowly. To be clear, I do see Stutzle outproducing what people may have originally expected and Byfield may be coming along a bit slower. With that said, I don't see the path for the 2 deviating to far from the mean from what was expected when also considering the deployment.
The area I find to be most troublesome is the team objective and deployment. As much as people talk about taking the BPA in the draft, I think there is a time when that might not necessarily be the best answer. Putting together a team has become a lot more complex with salary cap, age/timeframe, drafting, trading, etc. Teams need a good mix of ELCs/pre-breakout players to compliment the veterans on higher AAVs which has created a greater trend for early draft picks to make the NHL earlier-and thereby putting more value on draft picks in trades. With Blake's messaging regarding the core 4, the main courses were going to be 1. Try to contend with the core before they taper off 2. Let them be the mentors to the younger group until they ride off into the sunset and have a bit more of a deliberate torch passing. From my view, it looks like we were on course 1 and diverted to course 2 which I sense a bit of an unclear direction-to be fair, the pandemic didn't help and Drew's comments about wanting to get back to playing meaningful games may do that (but did you expect him to just sit along for a long rebuild?).
The beginning of the 2020/21 season had us thrust Vilardi into the 2C. Instead of letting him have more than a year to grow into the position, Blake goes out and gets Danault and puts Vilardi in Ontario and changes him from C to W. Surely that was a good boost to his confidence /sarcasm. Not only do we get Danault but we also get Arvidsson plugging 2 top 6 spots in one offseason. The 2 have been good players for us and has contributed greatly but it was a quick turn on the youth gathering process-which I also understand is not necessarily meant to be all used directly for the roster. The success of these 2 combined with a breakout year for Kempe and a resurgence from Quick leads us into the playoffs and here we are this season, with expectations to compete and we bring in Kevin Fiala to add further to the top 6 (I know he doesn't always play there). If we had this type of timeframe and agenda, it might have made more sense to draft a guy like Stutzle but we also have an inherent problem.
So, where I am getting at is: 1. we have a bunch of young promising players who can't crack the lineup 2. for those that have cracked the lineup, the spot that they would be suited for is unavailable 3. we are not at a stage to nurture nor have we been very good at developing. I believe that this is in large part because of a lack of a clear plan. Prospects retain value for a couple years but beyond that, if the players hasn't made it yet, they start to depreciate. Todd is expected to win games at this point and he leans on veterans. Blake is not really forcing Todd to use some of the younger players either-clear case in point Sean Walker. It doesn't really make a lot of sense for the team to help retain value on veterans at the expense of the prospects because they lose development years and value too if using for trades but Blake hasn't addressed this. Depth is great but after a certain point, it's poor asset management. The deployment issue roots from the thought that unless you're Connor McDavid, AHL is good for you. That's almost like saying only Einstein is fit to skip a grade in school (I'm using Einstein as the symbol of genius and not for his prowess in school). And what are we developing at the AHL level? 2-way play and being hard on pucks? That is important but it's essentially a requirement to see any NHL action with the Kings (props to Kaliyev for adding that element-definitely was not his game). It feels like we are trying to create a puzzle that has all square pieces. Fiala is possibly an exception but this is a player that was developed elsewhere. We can highlight some of the hits but I question whether we have really gotten the best out of our prospects.
We haven't had massive hits with our own offensive prospects. Kopitar is probably the only one. If you look at how he developed, he came into the league with Marc Crawford as coach. He was not the most defensive minded coach. Some of his former players in Vancouver and Colorado really blossomed offensively during his time. It's probably not coincidence that Kopitar, Brown, Cammalleri and Frolov had one of their best offensive outputs during the Crawford years. The defense would come later under Terry Murray. Kopitar was probably talented enough to have flourished under either an offensive minded coach or a defensive minded coach but it might have been quite beneficial for a guy like Brown. Just dominating juniors or the minors isn't exactly the way to produce an offensive player. Need to let them try to do that at the NHL level too but it almost feels like we tame that before they get there.
I've written for too long. But the question is 1. Was Byfield what we needed at the time of the draft? 2. Would Stutzle have been what he is with the Kings? 3. Do we have an issue with development? 4. Do we have a plan?
but he needs to be taking shots, hitting basic targets on the net, and making the defense chase him a bit. I honestly think he has more to learn from Fiala than Kopitar at this point.
