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New Jersey Devils: On The Handling Of Damon Severson |
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Follow me on Twitter @ToddCordell
Damon Severson hasn't been spectacular this season but, all things considered, he has played relatively well.
Despite that he hasn't been given as much ice as most expected - either at 5 v 5 or on the power play - and has been healthy scratched at times; particularly of late.
I get wanting to get a look at David Warsofsky to see if he has a future with the team. I get wanting to give Seth Helgeson a look to see if he can be a depth defenseman moving forward.
What I don't get is why a retooling team is sitting a 21-year-old Damon Severson to make room for them. What makes the situation even more strange is that by all measurements Severson has been significantly better than both of those guys.
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The sample sizes aren't large for Helgeson and Warsofsky (the latter in particular) but Severson has been better than both defensemen - in most cases significantly - at producing points, generating shot attempts, generating scoring chances, preventing shot attempts and and preventing scoring chances.
Severson possesses significantly more potential than Helgeson and Warsofsky, is the youngest of the bunch and, again, has out performed them by all accounts so he should definitely be playing.
After thinking about why Severson has gotten the short end of the stick at times this season, I recalled that he didn't make the best impression on John Hynes in training camp.
Though Severson has played fairly well he has never really shown the confidence or flare he did under Pete DeBoer last season. He hasn't been spoon fed the same kind of minutes, either.
There's more to it than just that incident, obviously, but it seems Severson rubbed Hynes the wrong way from the word go and has never really recovered from it.
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