Jim Rutherford made the rounds on the radio yesterday and one of those interviews was with
Mark Madden interviewed. They covered a number of topics which included Sidney Crosby, Daniel Sprong, as well as Derrick Pouliot.
I am going to focus on the Derrick Pouliot part.
Madden: What makes David Warsofsky ready for the NHL but not a guy like Derrick Pouliot? I've seen both of them play and I'd choose Pouliot.
Rutherford: I don't disagree with you on that point, but we made a mistake last year on Pouliot. We should have put him in the minors last year at least for a half a season or full season and let him build up his confidence instead of learning the pro game at the NHL level. So as an organization we decided to send him to WB/S this year and do what we should have done last year. I talk to Billy Guerin on a regular basis and talked to him a couple days ago and it is foolish to bring Pouliot up and I've asked Mark Recchi and he's (Pouliot) gaining his confidence, he's getting closer, but we all feel it is important he is 100% gained his confidence and ready to go here so he doesn't have to come up and then go back down. But in Warsofsky's case he's a little bit older and he's got the good foot speed and can move the puck, go and retrieve the puck, but clearly Pouliot is going to be the better player and he's not far away from getting back here.
It has been almost four years since Derrick Pouliot was selected eighth overall at the NHL Entry Draft. It is past time to find out if he can hack it at the NHL level or not. The idea that he needs to gain his confidence playing against the Dustin Jeffrey's of the world is a little bit much.
Over the summer I looked at some AHL numbers and how they can be used to project future NHL success. Here are some of the tweets I used from Josh Weissbock
Derrick Pouliot is going to be 22 years old on January 16th. He currently has 41 points in 57 career AHL games which places him at 0.72 points per game. The chances are very likely that he is an NHL caliber defenseman right now. He is probably not going to be the impact defenseman that Ray Shero thought he was getting at the eighth overall pick, but he should still be able to contribute positively to the Pittsburgh Penguins, especially this year's defense corp.
The idea that he was somehow "rushed" to the NHL seems a little bit much when you check out his with or without you numbers from last year
He had a positive influence on every one of his teammates with the exception of Malkin who played the same with or without Pouliot.
The way this Pouliot situation is playing out is very similar to how Simon Despres' career arch in Pittsburgh played out. Despres was a better on-ice option than players like Doug Murray, Mark Eaton, Deryk Engelland, Robert Bortuzzo, Rob Scuderi, and even Brooks Orpik yet it was always a struggle for him to enter the lineup on a consistent basis. By the time Despres earned a regular spot they traded inexplicably him away for Ben Lovejoy. The coaches and management talked about Despres' intangibles much like they are talking about Derrick Pouliot right now.
The thing with young players is that they will make mistakes, but somehow their mistakes are considered more unacceptable than when veterans make them. When younger players make them they get ice time taken away. When veterans make them they continue to play through their errors. The standard should be the same for both veterans and less experienced players.
Then there is the dynamic of what mistakes look like with a puck moving defenseman versus that of an unskilled defenseman. The puck skilled defenseman's mistakes are going to be more glaring because they are trying to make controlled plays mostly every time they handle the puck. The unskilled guy is just going to fire the puck off of his stick right away. Our brain is trained to vividly remember the skilled player's mistakes because they look more glaring even though it is more rare in occurrence than the willful turnover the unskilled guy makes on a much more consistent basis. These things give the impression that a young skilled player needs to learn more when really they just need to play more.
Pittsburgh is in a win now window because of the moves that Ray Shero and Jim Rutherford have combined to make. Pittsburgh has traded away mostly all of their futures to create this win now approach. Because of that the only question they should be asking about players is if they make the team better right now. In the case of Simon Despres last year and Derrick Pouliot this year that answer is/was yes. The team can't get Simon Despres back but they can certainly call Derrick Pouliot up from the AHL.
It is time for the team to leave the psycho-analysis behind and start playing its best talent. It doesn't have to be this complicated.
****
Merry Christmas
Thanks for reading!
Pittsburgh Penguins Blogger • 
Join the Discussion:
»