Saundies
Fly On The Wall
This is a fair point for sure.I think giving up on Barron now would be like, just as an example; if Winnipeg gave up on Morrissey at 22. Now there's no guarantee or even a good chance he develops the same way, but with dmen, especially ones with good pedigrees as prospects, good size, and good skating, you should try to hold on to them for as long as possible to see if there's anything there. It takes dmen a while sometimes.
Obviously there's a point where, like with Beaulieu, it just becomes clear that he doesn't have it, but I don't think Barron is at that point yet.
It's hard to say with this new management team because there hasn't been a lot of runway in terms of development yet, but I think there is still quite a bit of PTSD from the last group. We held onto plenty of guys who didn't develop or pan out, and that's why we now look back in hindsight at the "Poehling for Ryan O'Reilly" trade possibility or how Jacob De La Rose was somehow untouchable for a while after 4-5 good games.
I do think an underrated skill of a GM/scouting staff is to identify who your horses are going to be and who you can potentially sell high on. You're not going to be right everytime, or wrong everytime either. But I think these calculated risks help you advance and get closer to the top.
For example, Sergachev for Drouin turned into a disaster, but I could at least see what MB was thinking when he did it at the time. It just didn't work out.