Last Saturday, the Colorado Avalanche sent 20-year old defenseman Nikita Zadorov down to their AHL affiliate, the San Antonio Rampage. I was surprised. I was disappointed. While I understand the team’s rough start presents a variety of challenges, I wish the Avalanche would provide a little more insight into their strategy. As it stands, the reassignment raises more questions than it answers.
Is this a short-term move or more of a long-term change? Does the reassignment signal an attempt from management to shelter their top prospects in the AHL while the franchise struggles? Why are some of the veterans with similarly bad numbers still with the team? What does the front office see the average fan does not?
You may wonder why I am asking these kinds of questions so early in the season. Let me use the Zadorov move to illustrate my point. For those who don’t remember, the Avalanche acquired the Russian defenseman as part of the Ryan O’Reilly trade.
(I am not going to delve into the merits of the trade, but for those who think the Avalanche should have mortgaged their future to sign him, let me just point out he is one of the few players who expected a hometown surcharge instead of a discount. He didn’t want to be here. The front office was forced to play the hand they were dealt and did their job acquiring some valuable prospects for a player who was leaving next year. Deal with it.)
The reports on Zadorov indicated he was a talented defenseman who needed some maturing and coaching to be great. He exhibited great hockey sense, quick feet, an impressive reach, and an intense competitive streak showcased by his physical style of play. The biggest concerns about him related to his relative immaturity and the sense the Buffalo Sabres mismanaged him. He came to the Avalanche needing quality coaching and mentoring to help build his confidence, confidence undermined by his time in Buffalo.
Zadorov arrived at training camp, seemingly happy to be here, and excited for the chance to become an integral part of an up-and-coming team. He showed flashes of brilliance as well as flame outs, one moment driving pressure on the net and the next being out of position and allowing the opponents to drive into the Avalanche zone. He seemed pretty much as advertised, a young, skilled defenseman with lots of potential and with 67 NHL games already under his belt.
So what did the Avalanche do with him? Over 11 games they cut Zadorov’s ice time in half, played him with bottom pairing partners, and scratched him multiple times. Somehow, he fell out of favor in ten games, even though he improved his plus-minus rating prior to being scratched. After the ‘coaching’ from the press box, he played poorly in his one remaining game, which makes me wonder about the effectiveness of the coaching.
If reassignments to the Rampage after a bad game are considered a good method to motivate players, half the team should have spent some time in the AHL based on the season to date, including favorites like forwards Gabriel Landeskog and Matt Duchene. Nathan MacKinnon is the only star forward who has scored more goals than the team has given up due to his defensive lapses.
Returning the discussion to Zadorov, the general consensus from hockey experts around the time of the trade centered on the need for quality development and coaching, something he lacked in Buffalo. The Sabres damaged his evolution by rushing him onto the opening night roster and then bouncing him back to his OHL team, the London Knights. In his second season, Zadorov saw limited ice time for an historically bad Buffalo team to the tune of sixty games. Playing alongside similarly young players finding their way like Rasmus Ristolainen and Tyler Myers, Zadorov never seemed to receive the kind of veteran mentorship current Avs Nathan MacKinnon and Matt Duchene received early in their careers.
On Zadorov’s reassignment, Colorado Avalanche General Manager Joe Sakic stated “…I think he lost a little bit of confidence…and if you’re not playing PK, PP — the quality minutes — as a young guy, (they need to go down). We’re going to need him (in the future). For a young man in that position, he needs to play a ton and work on his confidence.”
In eleven short games, the Avalanche managed to undermine the player’s confidence to the point their only alternative was to send him down? What exactly is happening in the coaching office? I have a crazy suggestion. Why not play the young players who are the future of the team now and let them gain valuable NHL experience? Why not let Zadorov play on the penalty kill and power play units? Why aren’t we seeing Brandon Gormley playing more minutes than Nate Guenin?
Please, for the love of hockey, someone in the Avalanche headquarters, explain this to me. Why are they giving the aging veterans all the ice time when they aren’t the future of the team? Where does the player development part of coaching enter the equation? How are the Avalanche going to be a better team next year if they keep doing the same things that failed before?
Please, please tell me the Colorado Avalanche are not going to be the train wreck Buffalo became last year. If the Avs aren’t training their young players and they are losing confidence in six (Mikko Rantanen) to 11 games, I have to wonder, why did they start in the first place? And if they were good enough to make the opening roster, what happened to undermine their confidence to the point where sending them down to the AHL presents a better option for their development?
I don’t know everything there is to know about hockey, and I probably never will, but I don’t think it takes a rocket scientist to question the logic of sending a player down to ‘help them build confidence.’ If it undermined their confidence in Buffalo, as it appears it did with Zadorov and forward Mikhail Grigorenko (his team mate and also an Avalanche acquisition from the O’Reilly trade), then it’s likely to have the same effect when the Avalanche send them down.
Joe Sakic had a minus FORTY for his plus/minus his second year with the Quebec Nordiques, yet he did not get sent to a minor league team. The lesson? The most direct way to develop NHL quality players requires allowing them to play against NHL players, and coach them on how to BE NHL players.
Starting on an AHL team and then working one’s way up to the NHL is a proven route, but bouncing back-and-forth is a risky business only a few players manage to overcome. While there are a few players tough enough to weather the back and forth between NHL and AHL, I have to wonder whether those methods will build the future for the Avalanche or undermine their hard work.
The Avalanche’s rough start this season puzzles me and while I understand they need to get some wins, some of their moves leave me wondering about their strategy. For now, I need to go find my glue gun. My foam puck head desperately needs repairs from repeatedly hitting my head against the wall.
7 Comments (4 conversations)
as a sabres fan i disagree with your statements about zadorov and the sabres. can’t see how you can say he was mismanaged and the sabres undermined his confidence. he played about 18 minutes a game here last year as a 19 year old rookie dman and played a lot with up and coming star rasmus ristolainen, who he was a close friends with, zadorov stated many times how much he enjoyed playing with him. and as for how the sabres damaged his evolution by rushing him onto the opening night roster, well i just don’t get this. he played 7 games here the year he was drafted before being sent back to his junior team. it was a reward for his strong training camp. not sure how playing 7 games in the NHL as a 18 year old would damage a players confidence or evolution. i do admit it was a rough year here last year with the tanking the team did in order to pick mcdavid or eichel but the fans and media understood the logic and there was never a negative atmosphere from the media or fan base or around the team. zadorov was well received here by the fans and media and was seen as a future star. his only problem here was as you stated was his maturity. he over slept for a practice, he left the country for the all star break and had flight problems and was not back when he was supposed to be. if i had to guess as to why he was sent down i would say there was something going on behind the scenes with his maturity and attitude and they wanted to send him a message related to that and not his on ice play. as for grigorenko, yes he was rushed to the nhl and mismanaged from the start.
Finally, someone around here is asking the right questions. The ‘sending him down for confidence’ line just doesn’t ring true to me either.
Ive never met any human being on the face of the earth that gets more confident after a demotion. I’ve found some that get motivated, some angry, some that take it like nothing happened, some that get depressed, and some that just plain shut down. But not on that gets a boost in confidence.
What he needs isn’t to get confident that he can play well against sub-nhl talent, it’s to learn that he can play well against NHL talent. Time in the AHL might help him improve his skills, but that’s not what they said he needed. We aren’t getting the whole story.
He’s just as good a some of the other blueliners playing now. This move smells.
And sorry Tammy, the chatter was that both Zad and Grink weren’t handled well in Buffalo. I tend to agree. Sending kids up and down isn’t good. The Avs will have to bring him back up later this year, just like the Sabres did. IMHO good player development means leave him where he is destined to stay, and make him better, or use him better.
zad was handled fine, he played a lot here and never complained about his time here, grink is another story he was not handled well at all, anyone who says zad was not handled well here is out of the loop
Well… perhaps I was wrong. I’ll admit I’m not ‘all that’. However, IMHO, both teams made a mistake in handling him.
After camp in ’13, he stayed with the Sabres until Nov, then got sent down to London.
After camp in ’15, he stayed with Avalanche until Nov, then gets sent down to San Antonio.
A player might need more time in the minors to get better. There is nothing wrong with admitting that. But IMHO it’s BAD player management to ‘reward’ a guy for a good training camp by keeping him up in the NHL team for a couple months. If he’s ready for the NHL, he’s ready. If you think he needs work, then tell him so and send him down for the work. Never bounce a guy back and forth.
It seems BOTH coaching staffs failed to acknowledge his weaknesses and needs when he was in camp and kept him up when he wasn’t ready. From what I heard from the Avs, he played exactly like they expected.
You shouldn’t mess with someone’s head telling them they are ready for the NHL for 2 months and then tell him he’s not. It breeds distrust between players and management. I’m sorry, but IMHO it gives exactly the wrong message, and is NOT good for player development.
I’m not saying you can’t bring a kid up for a couple of weeks to cover for an injury. Perhaps that’s why he stayed up in Buffalo. I don’t know honestly. But that is a clearly defined situation (they are told, “you’re here for a few weeks while “Bruno” gets healthy, then you are going back”).
But if mgmt screwed up before and kept him on the NHL team when he was not ready, how will he trust you to know he is ready when you call him up again? And if he’s playing as well as some of your top NHL defensemen, sending him down tells him it’s not about quality of play.
zed was only up for about 2 weeks before he was sent back to juniors. in the year a player is drafted teams have 9 games to make a decision on the player, if the player plays more then 9 games then his rookie contract kicks in, if not the contract won’t kick in till the following year. it gives the team a small window to determine if the player is ready for the NHL the year he is drafted. zed played 7 games in buffalo his draft year, zed never was sent to the AHL when he was with sabres he was up with the sabres the whole year last year. like I said he was highly thought of here by fans, he is going to be a player once he grows up. as for grink, good luck with him I don’t see him ever being an impact player he is not missed at all here by the fans. but we love o’reilly here he is already a fan favorite
Grant
Interesting to compare the early years for Sakic et al and see how they were “managed” in terms of development. Comparisons between the Quebec rebuild of the early 90s and the Avalanche “rebuild” started a couple years ago (yikes, has Duchene been in the league that long already!) may be relevant, with a notable exception that the NHL is now a salary cap world where Pierre Lacroix couldn’t succeed.
If the Avalanche are going to have a losing season, I’m all for having a losing season while playing the young guys and figuring out the plan for the future instead of riding the veteran players who won’t be in the league in a year or two (or at least once the Avalanche mature into contenders, assuming that happens).
So you think it’s the Sabres fault Zadorov threatened a return to Russia if he wasn’t kept on that historically bad Sabres team? What a joke.