Prospect development isn’t always linear, but eventually it pays off

In today’s society, we might be prone to giving up on things that don’t work out right away. However, sometimes patience pays off, especially when it comes to prospects.

While there are certain players who have gone from the junior and college ranks to the NHL, and perform well, some athletes take longer to develop. Take Chicago Blackhawks forward Connor Bedard, who was hit heavily by a sophomore slump. However, the former first-overall pick has turned his game around, and is one of the league leaders in scoring.

Over in St. Paul, Minnesota Wild goaltender Jesper Wallstedt was starting to be viewed by some as a bust for his inability to perform in the minors. Now, he’s helped the Wild get out of an early-season funk and back toward the top of the Central Division.

On Wednesday’s edition of Daily Faceoff LIVE, The Sheet host Jeff Marek joined Tyler Yaremchuk and Carter Hutton, explaining why patience is key, allowing prospects to develop into star players.

Jeff Marek: We all live right now with an expectation that things can change quickly. Because we’re used to having satisfaction and results really fast. A lot of it is because we get it from [cell phones]. So, we have this idea that because I can solve something on my phone really quickly, that all of a sudden a player can go from junior hockey or D-I hockey into the NHL, and they can figure it out in like six months or a year, and they can be a superstar. We tend to forget that these are human beings that we’re talking about here.

Connor Bedard last year and said, ‘Oh, geez, man, really struggling. I don’t know if he’s ever going to end up being the player that we thought he was going to be when he was shooting the lights out in Regina. Maybe we’ll just have to set our expectations a little bit lower for Connor Bedard.’ Look at him now…we have this unreal expectation of how things can turn around quickly and how things can be sped up fast and how development should be able to happen faster than ever. I think it’s because we’re all surrounded by and swimming in and sometimes drowning in technology, where things can change quickly, but here we’re dealing with human beings. 

You can watch the entire segment and full episode here…