Shane Wright, Catton, and Nyman played under 10 minutes. At some point this organization has to stop under utilizing the young players and give them more minutes. Eventually you need to take the training wheels off and see what you have in these young players.

7 comments

  1. This is what happens to third liners who don’t kill penalties when you’re shorthanded a lot.

    Edit:  Just to add that winning matters right now, too, TOI doesn’t tell the whole story, and they can still develop just fine with 10 minutes of NHL 5v5 a night.  

  2. I feel like people who post this kind of thing ignore completely the context of the game. We had six PKs. Anyone who isn’t on the PK is going to have deflated stats. We also went into defend the lead mode which is basically an extended PK. People need to chill.

  3. Also Dunn and Montour both played under 20 minutes last night – sometimes these things happen when there are 12 minutes of penalties (offensive players get played less)

  5. Who are they going to get more ice time over?

    It’s defense and penalty kills – we were on the PK six times last night. Our “4th line” all plays on the PK. There was a potential 6 minutes or more of time just for being on either PK unit last night

    After that, it’s about defense and shortening the bench late in games. I don’t think they needed to shorten as much this past game, but I suppose with the explosiveness of the sharks it makes a little sense when protecting a lead

    Shane’s offense is very good when he’s on, but his defense has still needed work. Catton is still being heavily protected, though I think his defense has been a lot better than people initially thought it would be. Nyman still needs to most work defensively. It makes sense that these guys aren’t getting a ton of minutes, but I agree that I’d like to see them get more. I’m excited to see them continue playing with each other, because I think once that combo gels it will be electric, they all complement each other really well

    Both Wright and Catton got PP time last night, and I would argue Jani should be on one of the units as well. If we play cleaner games or go on the power play more, the young guy’s ice time goes up

    You can’t force the issue if the game situation dictates that there isn’t more ice time to give

    If we’re somehow out of it at the deadline and have to sell, I expect that their ice time is going to skyrocket afterwards — but as long as we’re winning games this is probably about what we can expect

    Just don’t be on the PK 6 times a night

  6. If they “take the training wheels off the young players” and the team starts losing this sub would be in an uproar over the team losing lol. Also none of us are qualified to know how the develop a young NHL player, we’re just a bunch of random people watching hockey on our couches.

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