SDA (
Semyon Der-
Arguchintsev) might be the perfect example of why patience and caution is the best approach.
As a 3rd round pick and one of the youngest players in his draft class of 2018, the Leafs rushed to sign him to his ELC before returning him to junior last year. His birthdate of Sept 15th is the cutoff day for entry draft eligibility purposes and had he been born 1 day later he wouldn't have been eligible to this 2019 draft year.
However his play and production declined last year to the point where he scored only a mere 6 goals in junior, as he aged and developed. So his development curve declined post draft year +1, and as of now that contract is more questionable then the previous draft year.. Leafs would have had all this year his 19 year CHL campaign still to see if he rebounds from last year or where he is come June 2020. Would SDA even have been drafted coming off the season he did had he been in this draft class?
Was his decline the due to complacency on the players part knowing he already had his contract in hand guaranteed waiting for him, or was his draft year an anomaly over performance and he is simply regressing towards the norm or something else of which many possibilities exist.. We will never know but its the perfect example why the CBA is written to give teams as much time as possible to assess and evaluate the growth of that player from 18-20 years old before committing.
The NHL would even like to raise the draft age to 19/20 if they could so there is less guess work involved with 17/18 year old kids. Its self defeating if you ignore the guide rails put in place for a teams protection and you jump the gun for no apparent reason.
All prospects are suspects I always say, until they prove themselves one way or the other. So not sure what the rush is when you can make better decisions with more info to base it on, as there is no benefit to the NHL team by committing early because all rookie ELC contracts have their own cap limits, so its not as if the player can have an outstanding year in junior and it costs the team more like the recent Marner situation did.
The SDA example should have paved the way for the Robertson signing now to take a learning lesson from history as to why it makes sense to wait, even if that player is playing well outside the NHL.
So your not wrong really in asking "why the rush to judgement" when there is no benefit to the team to do so.