Setting the rookies up to succeed

By Brian LeBlanc
NCSportsTalk.com - Puck Drops
Email Puck Drops

---

One of the major complaints of Paul Maurice-coached teams, dating to his first tenure with the Hurricanes, is how he consistently underuses young players.  We've seen that played out in the last few games, since the Canes really started importing players from Albany en masse, and it makes me wonder exactly what the coaching staff wants from the young guys.

Below are the ice times for the recent callups over the last five games.  The first number is total ice time, and the second is power-play time.

Colorado
Boychuk: 13:13/1:01
Dwyer: 14:16/0:35
Samson: 7:59/0:00
Tlusty: 10:58/1:01

Ottawa
Boychuk: 6:54/0:00
Dwyer: 15:05/0:00
Samson: 8:15/0:00
Tlusty: 15:06/0:46

Toronto
Boychuk: 6:52/0:00
Dwyer: 11:16/0:00
Samson: 7:28/0:00
Tlusty: 13:02/0:46

Detroit
Boychuk: 10:11/0:00
Dwyer: 14:48/0:00
Samson: 5:44/0:00
Tlusty: 14:49/2:03

Atlanta
Bowman: 10:23/0:00
Boychuk: 8:07/0:00
Dwyer: 11:56/0:00
Tlusty: 13:39/0:00

The numbers that really intrigue (and concern) me are the ones for Bowman (on his first recall), Samson (first) and Boychuk (third).  No one is expecting them to come in and light the world on fire, but all three players are offense-first guys who haven't developed their defensive game to a responsible level yet.

For that reason, you can understand the thinking behind limiting their ice time.  But when you look at a box score and see Eric Staal, for example, playing 23 minutes in Saturday night's game, it makes you wonder what the coaching staff is looking for out of the young players.  Putting Bowman on a line with a -22 Rod Brind'Amour and a hot third-liner in Tom Kostopoulos isn't exactly giving him the green light to do what he came up to do, is it?

If you're going to call up youngsters and give them a taste of the NHL, wouldn't you want them to be in positions where they're likely to succeed?  Drayson Bowman is never going to be a checking-line center.  Even if he eventually becomes defensively responsible, his meal ticket will be on a third line (think along the lines of the Jokinen-Samsonov-Ruutu line from last year's playoffs) that gets about ten minutes a game, plus power play time.  Putting him out there with players whose sole responsibility is to play defense might sound good in a hypothetical, educational way, but the organization owes it to its prospects to put those players in positions where they're likely to succeed.

I'm not disputing the logic of bringing the kids up for a cup of coffee then sending them back down after a few games.  Far from it; that theory fits perfectly with how this season is going, where you want to use it for something positive and see what you have in the pipeline.  I don't begrudge the coaching staff for riding their horses, either; after all, they want to win just as much as anyone else does.  Eric Staal absolutely should have the highest ice time of any forward.  But would it really harm anything if, say, Boychuk and Bowman went in for Cullen and Whitney every once in a while on a power play?  The young players are paid to produce offense.  It's the responsibility of the coaching staff to allow the players to do so.

Staal himself is a great cautionary tale.  He played an entire season in the NHL his rookie year, only missing one game, and tallying a pedestrian 31 points in a year where Josef Vasicek, of all people, led the Canes with the princely sum of 45 points.  What would have been his sophomore campaign was wiped out by the lockout, so he played in Lowell and had a great season, playing against the best competition in the history of the AHL.  He was put in a position to succeed with the Lock Monsters, after getting a taste of what he needed to do to succeed in the NHL the season before, and it resulted in a 100-point season and a Stanley Cup the following year.

I'm not saying that any of these players are going to become Eric Staal.  What I am saying, though, is that the Canes stumbled into a situation where they could allow Staal to refine his game to the point that when he returned to the NHL, he caught fire.  In the cases of Boychuk and Bowman, the Canes have a responsibility to the development of both players to give them a chance to succeed.  Playing them for six and seven minutes a game isn't giving them that chance.  Here's hoping that if and when the Canes start selling assets at the trade deadline and the young players get more permanent slots, they'll be given the chance to do what got them to this point rather than throwing them into a trial by fire.