Sorry, but that’s complete bullshit.
Alexis LaFreniere Responds With Big Game Against Czech Republic
“Alexis LaFreniere had a lot to prove heading into Saturday’s World Junior contest against Czech Republic. He had not recorded any points in the first two Round Robin games. But more importantly, it had appeared that Team Canada coach
Tim Hunter had lost faith in the 17-year-old, evidenced by his benching of LaFreniere in the third period against Switzerland.
“We showed him some video from the Denmark game and he was out there skating around like it was a free skate, lots of circles in his game and we weren’t happy with that,”
Hunter stated. “And we talked to him about it and we showed him the video and explained it to him. I told him, ‘At the start of the game, you’re going to show me whether you understood this or not and if you don’t we’re going to limit your ice time.’”
Similar to Byfield, Lafreniere barely played and didn’t generate offense when he was the same age as Byfield at the 2019 WJC.
In his first WJC tournament, not long after turning 17, Byfield played 11 minutes in his first game and only took one draw. In his second game he played close to 13 mins in a blowout loss where he played wing again. Third game he played less than nine minutes. Game four he played about 11 minutes, game 5 less than nine minutes, seven minutes in game 6, and he didn’t play in the seventh game.
This is a tournament that is mostly dominated by under 20 year olds, and Byfield was the youngest participant. You putting so much stock into that when he barely even got to play shows how misguided your opinions are.
Given how important the WJC numbers are, I guess the Sabres made the right call in selecting Sam Reinhart ahead of Leon Draisaitl in 2014, right?