Quoting: Rideordie
Honestly he was right, you absolutely need some veteran that can perform in the ahl. He will never comme in the Nhl for sure but he is a greaf exemple for the young guys and one of the best player in laval last year. The facts are that their is no more quality unsigned prospect and with the players we have under contract, we need to get 3-4 more players and even by doing that we will make some very low quality propect play like verbeek en waked. The best way to make our prospect progress in the ahl is by winning and juste young guys are not enough to win. Check every single ahl team, they all have some veteran ahl players.
Quoting: HabsForEver
I'm not argueing that he is going to be a NHL player at all. If you are going to have a bunch of kids in the AHL, you are going to need some veteran leadership to show the kids how to do things. Belzile brings nothing but Heart and Leadership. He is the perfect person to have in Laval. Half the talent? Are you stupid or just ignorant? He was one of the very few bright spots in Laval this year. I can name 5 players on every single team who deserve a contract less than Belzile. This isn't NHL 19 buddy, you can't expect to ice a team full of 22/23 YO's in the AHL.
veteran leadership from the guy who's been sitting most of the time in the ECHL. Honestly I don't even know where you get these things. Furthermore it's like you never even played sports.
As if those kids coming out the NCAA have no leadership skills. A lot of the unsigned ones are 22-23 years old and played 4 years of NCAA hockey. A lot of the prospects coming over from Europe are 22-25 years old. The penguins signed Riikola last year, he was 24. He's a far better player than this guy who's spent most of his time in the ECHL.
For every dud signing you sign, you pass up on a better player might have the talent to make it to the next level. Riikkola showed he'd be a good 7th man last year at the very least.
There are players like that out there. You choose to pass them up for some false narrative of "leadership" as if most of these kids have never played hockey before. They are all at least 20 years old. They have all played in organized hockey before, they are typically the best players on the ice and had leadership roles where they came from. They will also be on a team with other younger players who have been on the team for a year or two before.
But no, lets sign the 27 year old who will never make it anywhere, who's been lucking around in some backwater ECHL team for "leadership".
This is why teams don't develop talent well. This backward thinking. It's a farm team. The only time you aren't signing younger players is if you simply can't find them and you need to field a team.
But it's May, and hockey doesn't start till september. So I'm pretty sure they can find someone.