We've had plenty of young players who have shown a lot of growth in limited roles, and over the years we've had many of them break out -- either with us or away from us -- when they've been given bigger opportunities and some leash to run with. We have Chytil crushing fourth line minutes at even strength as far as per/60 scoring goes, Kakko driving play through fantastic chance suppression in third/fourth line minutes, and even Lafreniere started to score at a great rate by the second half of the season with no PP time.
Looking at the current pinnacle of the league -- Tampa, Colorado -- these teams have done a phenomenal job at identifying players, in their system and outside of it. Colorado scooped Girard, Toews, Donskoi, and Burakovsky (two top pairing defensemen and two top six wingers) that almost immediately blossomed when given the roles that matched their pretty obvious abilities. Tampa did the same thing with Coleman last year. They didn't hesitate to move Stamkos to the wing when they saw what they had in Point and Cirelli. They shipped out their ppg captain to us because they knew they had Kucherov, Johnson, and Palat ready to fill in.
Even in the past, we've seen the same success play out here. Brassard, Zuccarello, Stralman. During the rebuild, Kevin Hayes played so well Brooks didn't want to let him go. Zibanejad stepped up after Stepan left. Buchnevich this year--let's be honest, he's improved surely, but he also was given a much larger role to begin the season and as a penalty killer no less.
The bottom line for this rebuild and the team's chances at contending for however long, is that success will depend on shifting responsibility to the younger wave, and better sooner than later. You have to know what you have in these kids. You can't be enamored with Strome the Panarin Whisperer so much that he's eating the PP time that Kakko and Lafreniere need, or the even strength minutes that you need Chytil to prove himself in. It's not a matter of having a team full of ELCs. It's about transitioning away from expensive and depreciating assets to others that you also expect to be expensive but that you can extract a lot more value from given their age, RFA status, and limited resumes. And the same logic applies when seeking UFAs or trades for veterans to fill out your roster. Not every dman we get should be a Trouba who will bend us over for 8mil a year. You need to find a top four guy who you can pay bottom four money for at least a brief window.
