Agree with a lot of your post. He's tracking pretty consistent with the defensemen of his draft class except the two elites picked ahead of him. Defense is likely the hardest to onboard and generally follow forwards in making the show. On a Window team, Broberg should realistically be insulated behind an elite veteran d-corp with right-sized minutes and quality of competition.
Where I quibble a bit is about 'any panic being uwarranted.' There's some development gaps that need to be unravelled through more ice-time and experience - his processing speed/ability against apex NHL competition and his physical strength to defend in battle areas within a far more physical and fast NHL game than Europe. The slower processing speed is hurting his reads, placing him in vulnerable physical situations, and with limited confidence to make plays. Now will it get better with experience or is it an innate weakness? Need more time to determine. On the physical side, he's tall and rangy but struggling with mature, strong and physical opposition. The strength will come in due course.
Strangely that conservative Holland and Woodcroft were publicly anointing Broberg a roster spot last year and had expected him to have a regular roster spot and minutes. That wilted away with Woodcroft reducing minutes through the stretch drive. And this off-season Holland now declaring he needs to figure out Broberg.
This is a high pedigree kid who wore letters on a strong national team for three years - a rarity for Sweden. But the NHL jump is a huge leap up and as I'm prone to say with elite Window stage teams like trying to jump on a speeding bullet train. Highly unrealistic to call this player a bust but also not unrealistic to question his fit on a mature veteran team that feels it can win a Cup within the next one to three years.
We seem to be in agreement with a lot of value on processing the play and making decisions with the puck. We notably have a lot of D who struggle with this, although it's interesting because we can agree that Bouchard may hold onto the puck far longer than any of these other guys, difference being he is collected and purposeful in his holding of it. With guys like Nurse, Broberg, and well, practically everyone else EXCEPT Bouchard and at times Ekholm, all of our D struggle mightily to handle the puck and make the 'right' play with it.
I was hyped on Broberg when we drafted him because I hadn't spent much time considering this aspect. His speed and size was tantalizing. However now when I try and analyze why I feel our D in general in comparison to opposition groups struggle, specifically Nurse, I note that when the puck is on his stick he usually looks lost or panicked. When he tries to stick handle or pass the puck is like a grenade. I view Broberg similarly. This is a player who just doesn't have good hands. Reminds me of Foegele as well at times. Clumsy players who made it to the NHL being three of the most physically gifted in terms of size and speed.
It's why I am hesitant on Akey as well. I now notice the same traits where although Akey is smoother, his decision making is so slow and clumsy that it seems more like a between the ears kind of issue. Some guys just don't have an elite mind for the game. For some reason they can't process the decision making at lightning fast speed and the play dies on their stick when the options they had to pass to are now slowed down on the other side of the ice or taken away by defenders. As we know with Nurse this typically turns into a weak snapshot from near the goal line in the offensive zone, or a chip off the glass in our zone. These guys simply run out of time over and over and over.
So yea, I am really worried about Broberg. I would wonder if we take the approach we DIDN'T take with Yamo and Pulju when we realized hey, maybe these guys aren't going to develop -- let's trade them while they still have some value. Instead, we lost one for nothing and paid for the other to be taken off our hands.
edit: I'm now trying to think of some players who have shown to be struggling with these aspects of the game, who struggled to stickhandle and make plays quicker, and turned it around a few years into the league. Any ideas?
