I don't think we need to worry about this part with Byfield or Stutzle, they both seem to be NHL size. Honestly, the guy that worried me the most in this regard recently was Pettersson, his rookie season had me cringing every time he took a hit.
Oh, I absolutely agree with you on this part, I was just providing a counter argument to the over developing concept. I think there are plenty of valid arguments for joining the Kings at 18 for Byfield/Stutzle and just as many for them not to be in the NHL. I do find the whole discussion interesting because it brings into account another factor. Byfield is limited to CHL or the NHL, while Stutzle can go to Ontario. I think if Byfield is drafted that he has a much better chance of being on the Kings next season than Stutzle would for this very reason.
Same on Pettersson and I was totally wrong about him translating quickly, so that's actually a really good example.
It's an interesting dimension having the CHL kid vs. the European kid for placement's sake but I wouldn't draft on next year.
I don't think it's one or the other. If you can earn top 6 minutes and play with future hall of famers and experience the pace of the NHL then there is nowhere better imo to develop.
So I am mostly interested in developing the players, winning a few more games is just icing on the cake.
The problem with calling up young players, who project to be top 6 players, to an NHL team is burying them in bottom six roles and giving them no pp time. But when you can afford to give them major minutes then it's a great place to develop imo. This team can afford to play a guy like Kaliyev next to Kopitar all season long, his weakness is his defensive play right? So where will he learn to play better Defense, next to Kopitar on an NHL team that will demand it, or back in the CHL where he can get away with whatever he wants? That's just one example.
I do think that one of the criticisms of the Kings--not trading Kopitar and Doughty--is one of the reasons they're an effective development environment vs., say, the Oilers previously. Or, frankly, the Devils when they picked up Hischier. There's a good combo of great youth with leadership coming up together, a legendary veteran set in Kopitar, Brown, Doughty, etc., and a phenomenal development system. That does add a unique wrinkle to the "CHL or NHL" discussion because if we were the 2010s oilers I'd say send him back after 9 almost without fail haha.
Points per game by definition is a rate and his/QB’s rate was based on a partial season. Therefore it is a projection.
Otherwise you wouldn’t quote a ppg rate. You would just show me how he had the second highest number of points overall that season and you also would not find me arguing against QB being our 2nd overall...because not only would I then have little issue with him (vs. Stutzle) we’d probably be drafting Lafreniere instead because QB would be going 1st overall.
But neither is true...QB played a partial, like 2/3rds to 7/9ths, of a season against boys and we won’t know what his real ppg would have been because he never played those other games.
You could also argue his PPG would be higher as he was playing back from an injury. It cuts both ways. We're not talking about a dude who came out of nowhere to put up big numbers in a small sample size, he still played most of the season at a near 2 PPG rate. He was at 1.83 PPG in the 6 games before his injury (basically season avg), and 1.6 in the few games after injury before the season got cut short.
Your argument is essentially that missing a handful of games makes him less talented and should drop him in draft position because "we don't know" what his "true" PPG would have been like but frankly that's an assumption that not even 20 games would have seen a noteworthy drop in his production when we have no reason to believe otherwise. Especially given even guys like Rossi, McMichael, etc. missed some games themselves.
