With a lineup comprised mostly of younger non-NHL roster players, the Wild turned in a sloppy performance in last night’s 4-1 loss to the Avalanche. Looking at the team’s performance and Bruce Boudreau’s comments, one would have to wonder if expectations might be a little too high for these young players.
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Talent is only one part to the equation that makes up a good player. At some point that talent needs to be translated into results. The great part about young players in hockey is there are a ton of avenues for them to develop that talent into results. The problem for teams can often be when you see that talent you might want to make the leap thinking it will lead to results way before it has had a chance to develop. The Minnesota Wild might be getting a big lesson in that right now.
Last night’s preseason tilt against the Colorado Avalanche was populated heavily with some of the younger kids of Wild who many have said have a good shot to make the Minnesota roster. There was a huge buzz about the premier of 2015 1st round draft pick Joel Eriksson-Ek, and of course all eyes were on him and the 2014 1st round pick Alex Tuch as they look to make good on the hype surrounding their chances to make the NHL roster.
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The result was a 4-1 loss where neither one of the two young guns scored a point, and Eriksson-Ek was a minus one. Kinda a letdown for the premier of such a high touted prospect who some think is NHL ready. Sure according to Michael Russo Eriksson-Ek was “by far the best forward in the third period”, but I’d have to say what did that result in? A loss where he tallied no points, and the Avs scored twice in the third period.
That seems to be the issue people “think” these young Wild players are NHL ready without much in the way of NHL level results. In modern day parlance this a phenomenon is called expectations, and the issue with expectations is that sometimes they are based in past observation rather than current performance. In hockey it’s important to see what a player is doing now before levying expectations on them. In the past their competition could have been at a lower level, the player could have an injury that has developed since he was last seen, or any other countless changes since a player was last evaluated.
Right now that evaluation might not be going as well as the young players would like. After last night’s loss Boudreau hinted to Russo that he might want to see a bit more out of his younger players. “These are the kind of games in the first week where the kids really outshine the veterans. Unfortunately for us tonight, I thought our best line was the Staal line . I wanted to see a little bit more from other people.”
Those “other people” are the “kids” in this case. Boudreau wants to see them play to the NHL standard, and while he recognizes their talents and good work, he has his criteria to make this team and everyone needs to meet it. When pressed further by Russo about some poor passing by the kids he answered simply “It’s the NHL,” implying that they need to be playing the game up to the NHL level and speed.
And that’s really what I’m talking about is that a player has to be ready for the NHL game. It doesn’t matter if they can crush prospect level competition when you are asked if they are ready for the NHL. They need to be excelling against NHL level competition to make an NHL team, if not you need to put them in a position where they can learn the skills and develop into that player than can compete with NHL level competition.
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Sure there’s a lot of training camp left and lots more looks to make improvements. But I think right now the path for the kids is to head to Iowa or elsewhere for more development. And that’s not a bad thing at all. Just because a player is following the normal path to the NHL is not cause to think they won’t become a superstar in the league.
Examples of players who make the jump from junior or college to the NHL right away are Connor McDavid and Jack Eichel, and they’ve been described as “generational talents” which is a rare thing. Sure Alex Tuch was a great player in college and says a lot of the right things, but is he as good as Jack Eichel when he left BU?
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So as the State of Hockey continues to watch this training camp, just remember that to expect these young players to be NHL ready is a bit of a tall order. The issue with prospects is not to rush them because development takes time, but that doesn’t mean that they will not be up to the NHL standard soon. So going forward maybe the expectation should be updated that the “kids” will need more development, but always keeping in mind that players can exceed expectations with results.