The most important word when it comes to young NHL players is one that long-suffering fan bases don't want to hear: patience.
Expectations have undoubtedly been skewed for highly drafted players of late in part because Connor McDavid and Auston Matthews destroyed the development curve for everyone else. Young talents just aren't supposed to average more than a point per game as a rookie and then hit the 100-point mark in Year 2, as McDavid did. And they aren't supposed to score 40 goals out of the gate, as Matthews did.
The truth is, there are so few players who can achieve that level of immediate impact. And as quick as we are to see their early success and anoint them the best of the game's next wave, there's a similar rush to slap the "bust" label on other top picks when they aren't immediately wowing with McDavid-esque production. It's extremely premature.
For fans of struggling teams, with so much hope pinned on players to drag them out of the doldrums, it's understandable why anxiousness takes over. Hours spent watching losing hockey are comforted only by knowing that there's a lottery pick on its way. The desire for immediate impact from those young players is natural. But man, is it rare.
Only 52 players since 2005-06 -- when Sidney Crosby entered the league -- appeared in more than 40 games in their draft-plus-one season in the NHL. It averages out to a little more than two players per draft playing immediately, or 1% of all drafted players in that span. The list of players who made a significant impact in that season is a lot shorter: Only 21 of those players scored 40 or more points in their first season.
New York Rangers winger Alexis Lafreniere and Ottawa Senators winger Tim Stutzle (Nos. 1 and 3 in the 2020 NHL draft, respectively) have already felt the pressure to produce, just a handful of games into their careers. Both have scored their first NHL goals, but the clock starts ticking on impatience very soon. As we saw last season for New Jersey Devils center Jack Hughes and Rangers winger Kaapo Kakko (Nos. 1 and 2 in 2019, respectively), the rookie honeymoon period does not last long. Neither performed up to the expectations that their lofty draft positions often call for these days. There's an argument that neither should have been in the league last year, but if you've watched either at any point this season, you can already see a jump in play. Hughes already has eight points in nine games.
Player development takes time, and developing at the NHL level is not the ideal. It can seem like it takes longer for players who enter the league at 18 or 19 years old because those players have to develop in front of the entire league, while most are still in juniors, college or the minors and away from the public eye. The standard of No. 1 overall picks playing right away is set and can put guys like Hughes in a tough situation.
The extended offseason obviously did wonders for him; he is definitely stronger, perhaps even more explosive and playing with the confidence of a No. 1 center. Kakko also appears stronger, and while he hasn't posted Hughes' numbers, he's also markedly improved in his game-to-game impact. But both are still on the very front of their development arcs. They're not the players they're going to be in five years. Again, patience.
The same can be said for Buffalo Sabres defenseman Rasmus Dahlin, the top pick in 2018. The Swede had the unenviable task of jumping into the NHL at 18 years old, transitioning from European professional hockey and landing on a team that didn't have nearly enough talent to insulate him. In his third season, Dahlin has had some early struggles as the Sabres hover in the middle of the pack to start the year.
But he is another great example of how development does not move in a straight line but rather ebbs and flows. That is especially true this season, considering the super long layoff players experienced on teams that didn't go to the NHL playoff bubble last fall. It's going to take time to adjust.
The first thing about Dahlin that may not be abundantly clear is that he has managed the incredibly steep learning curve of being a top defenseman in the NHL better than most. In an ideal world, Dahlin would have gotten at least another year in Sweden to further hone his craft, but No. 1 picks are expected to play in the NHL immediately, and so he did. He also happened to play remarkably well in a tough situation. He wasn't as polished as some of the players who take an extra year or two, but he was ready enough and developed well enough.
I don't think we appreciate Dahlin's first two seasons enough, though. His 84 points over those first two NHL campaigns were second to Phil Housley for most by a U20 defenseman in NHL history. Only Housley and Bobby Orr had a higher points-per-game average among teenage defensemen with at least 100 NHL games. Dahlin's underlying numbers were also pretty strong, with a positive Corsi For percentage, relative Corsi in the black and good independent shot volume -- all while averaging top-four defenseman minutes.
Some have criticized the terming of Dahlin as a "generational talent" on defense, and he gets extra eyeballs there because he's not even the most impactful defenseman from his own draft class at this moment. Vancouver Canucks d-man Quinn Hughes (the seventh pick in Dahlin's 2018 draft class) has emerged as a star, tallying 53 points and finishing as the runner-up to Cale Makar in the Calder Trophy voting last season. But with Dahlin, there are some important additional factors to consider, with age being the biggest one.
Sure, a matter of months seems inconsequential, but there is a difference between players like Quinn Hughes who are late birthdates and players who are 17 years old on draft day like Dahlin. In fact, it's a full year of development. Hughes also spent his draft-plus-one season in college, gaining more strength and time to prepare for the NHL, whereas Dahlin was out there for the Sabres right away. And the arrival of Makar, who has two years on Dahlin, only heightened skepticism about Dahlin's overall talent when the Avalanche blueliner walked into the NHL and dominated from Day 1. On top of the age difference, let's also not forget that both Hughes and Makar were on better teams when they entered the NHL.
Look, I get it. This sounds like a lot of excuses for Dahlin. But context matters when comparing players of a similar age. I'm also not saying for certain that Dahlin will one day surpass Hughes as the top defenseman from that draft class. It's too early to tell for the most part.
Historical comparables are probably a more fair metric than pitting Dahlin against Hughes or Makar. Aaron Ekblad was the previous No. 1 defenseman taken in the draft to immediately enter the league at 18. He won the Calder Trophy that rookie year (2014-15) and has been a perfectly solid top-four defenseman in the NHL. Ekblad is a good player who has gotten even better in the ensuing years and has seven seasons of NHL service by age 24.
And Dahlin is ahead of where Ekblad was at the same age. Based on what I've seen, I think his trajectory is more favorable than that of Ekblad.
While Ekblad is the most appropriate age-related comparable in recent memory, we can also look at other benchmarks for Dahlin. That likely means a future Norris Trophy winner, which remains a reasonable projection based on what we've seen throughout his very young career. So let's reverse engineer the careers at two of the three most recent Norris-winning defensemen. (I'm leaving Mark Giordano out, as he's a bit of an outlier among Norris winners, having been undrafted and thus having different expectations for his career trajectory.)
Roman Josi was drafted 38th overall in 2008. He didn't reach the NHL until 2011-12, the fourth season after he was drafted. His first two years were largely pedestrian but showed signs of promise. By his fourth NHL season, he was 24 years old and received his first Norris Trophy votes. And in his ninth NHL season, he won the Norris with his most dominant season to date.
How about Victor Hedman? He had similar expectations to Dahlin as a No. 2 pick in 2009, and there were a lot of doubters about what he'd become. It isn't exactly a one-to-one comparable, as Hedman was older in his draft year, but he came into a similarly tough situation -- a rebuilding Tampa Bay Lightning team, hype as the next big thing on defense and impatience when he ambled out of the gate a little slower than expected.
Hedman played top-four minutes immediately in the NHL, but he didn't have more than 26 points in any of his first four seasons in the league. He didn't receive a Norris vote until he was 23 and waited three more seasons before he was a finalist. Now? Hedman has been a top-three finisher in Norris voting in each of the last four seasons, winning in 2018-19, and he just added a Conn Smythe to his list of accolades.
Case in point, sometimes you have to sit through the struggles to get to the good stuff. Hedman's ceiling never changed as he found his way in the league, and now he's widely considered among the best defensemen in the game. He reached the projection, but it took time.
Dahlin does not have a magic wand to speed up the process. When put in the proper context, his career trajectory looks no different than it did the day he was selected at No. 1. Patience is the name of the game, and you have to remember that not every top pick will be give you McDavid production right away. Another reminder comes in the form of the player who today most closely challenges McDavid for the title of best player in the world: Nathan MacKinnon. It took years for the Colorado center to climb from good NHL player to dominant offensive force, but he got there. No two players are the same, and sometimes you just have to wait a little longer.
The NHL has gotten younger, but being young in the league is still a challenge. The more space these players are given to develop at the appropriate pace, the better off they'll be in the long term. They're going to make mistakes, they're going to have long scoring droughts and they're going to have nights when they look like they don't belong. You just have to remember that those players were deemed good enough and ready enough to have to make those mistakes in front of everyone, instead of at a lower level and out of the larger public eye.
As the saying goes, trust the process.