Quoting: Saskleaf
How did they develop Sandin so poorly though? I don't think people value him much less since last year. Toronto being a win now team is a good thing. And the leafs are not sacrificing their top prospects development to do it (although I am disappointed they aren't playing Robertson).
"We don't want our players going up to the Leafs before they're ready, and we don't want them shuttling up and down. We want players to be called up to the Leafs when they're young and on the first two years of their entry-level contracts ONLY when they prove that they can be a Leaf, all the time."
Dubas knows that bringing in players on the first two years of their entry-level contracts before they will be permanent is harmful, so harmful that he emphasized that they would only ever bring those players in when they were confident they would be permanent - and yet he has brought all 3 of his top prospects into the NHL before they will be permanent.
Then you compound that stupidity with, when it comes to Sandin, telling him to stay in game shape from March until August so they could not bother to dress him in the return to play, instead of having him start offseason training in March so that he could have taken advantage of what would have been the best opportunity he will ever have in his career to gain mass and strength (again going from: the team has to do what is right by the young players, to the young players only matter in terms of how they can help the team today). That left him needing to try to do so for a couple months in the fall, when he could have actually been playing in Europe. But instead he will go 10+ months without playing and then play some games in an AHL that will be of much lower quality than the league has ever been.
Leafs' fans (and most experts) compared Sandin with Romanov (with Leafs' fans generally putting Sandin ahead, often far ahead). By the end of this season it will be considered a joke to compare them. Romanov will be that far ahead, and Sandin will never catch up. Incidentally, both of them desperately needed to get bigger and a year ago Sandin weighed a couple pounds more than Romanov. But Sandin, due to the Leafs' irresponsibility is actually coming in several pounds lighter than he was a year ago, while Romanov under the guidance of Montreal now outweighs Sandin by over 20 pounds. Montreal will ensure that Romanov is not shuttled up and down, and they ensured there was a pathway for him to move to the top-4 quickly (likely by the end of the season at the latest). Sandin on the other hand will become the 4th D to play enough as a teenager to burn a year of his ELC and then get buried in the minors the next year. It is no surprise to those who understand development (as Dubas does as per the link above) that the other 3 never turned out (despite being high touted prospects and two being top-20 picks).