Great excerpt from a Michael Farber article in SI.com where he discusses many subjects: Denis Savard’s firing, the talented, young Coyotes team and Sarah Palin:
Before the Tampa Bay Lightning drafted Steven Stamkos with the first overall pick this year, the team bought billboards in the area asking the question, “Seen Stamkos?”
The short answer is, absolutely. He’s the guy picking splinters from his butt on the bench.
Presumably Tampa Bay’s mercurial ownership will put a bug in coach Barry Melrose’s ear to give Stamkos, averaging 9:27 through three games — including a mere 6:05 cameo against Carolina last weekend — a little more ice time, although vice-president of hockey operations Brian Lawton cautioned prior to the start of the season that Stamkos would not be rushed. The situation stands in contrast to how the Phoenix Coyotes use their talented rookie forwards, Mikkel Boedker and Kyle Turris. Through three games, Boedker is averaging 16:14 while the lanky Turris has played an average of 11:28. Turris is tied for the team lead with four points (one goal, three assists) while Boedker has a goal. Stamkos has no points and is a minus-1.
“Wayne is really great with young players,” Phoenix GM Don Maloney said of coach Wayne Gretzky. “It might be 11 minutes for these guys, but it could be 18 minutes. He’ll get them power-play minutes and the right matchups for them at this point.”
In Phoenix’s first two games, Gretzky tried to keep Turris away from Anaheim’s Ryan Getzlaf — “He’s not ready for that,” Gretzky said with a smile — and Rick Nash’s line when the Coyotes played Columbus.
Boedker might be slightly ahead of Turris at the moment because the Dane manages the puck better and has a more mature two-way game, in part because of his apprenticeship in Kitchener of the Ontario Hockey League for current Florida Panthers coach Peter DeBoer.
“The good thing is we don’t have to force feed them,” Maloney said. “We have veterans like (captain Shane) Doan and a motivated Olli Jokinen to carry the load. Wayne’s been giving them important ice time, like at the end of periods; I’m not sure I would do it, but that’s how guys get better. Sometimes young guys end up turning pucks over. All those plays you can get away with in junior and college — on the rush, pulling up inside the blueline — won’t work here because guys in the NHL are on you so quick. Fortunately Wayne understands that, hey, it’s a young guy who made the mistake. You talk to them, and then you get them back out there. But in a lot of places if you’re a coach who’s bent on winning games for survival only, after a turnover you’re back on the bench.”
Last season, two of the rookies the freshly-fired Savard helped develop in Chicago, Patrick Kane and the preternaturally mature Jonathan Toews, finished 1-3 in Calder Trophy voting. Don’t be shocked if this Phoenix pair does the same thing.