Simon Edvinsson had 22 shifts last night in the Detroit Red Wings 5-3 win against the New Jersey Devils.
The 21-year-old finished with 20 minutes, 15 seconds of ice time, only trailing Moritz Seider (24:51) when it came to usage amongst Red Wings defenders.
And on his first shift, a mistake by Edvinsson almost ended up in the Red Wings net.
He made a risky play with the puck at the offensive blue line, turned it over to Devils forward Jasper Bratt, and it nearly led to a scoring chance on an odd-man rush for New Jersey.
Instead of stapling Edvinsson to the bench, the Red Wings let him play through it.
“Mistakes are gonna happen, and I think I’ve reached the point where it’s simple, I don’t let mistakes bother me anymore,” Edvinsson said. “If you worry about it, you are gonna make more, I’ve kind of figured out now I can just be out there playing my game, and not worrying about mistakes and letting them become bigger than they are.”
It’s a topic that fascinates me, young players — young defenders in particular — and when and how they earn the confidence in themselves and from their coaches to play through mistakes at the NHL level.
One of the common NHL axioms is that veteran players get excused for mistakes, while younger players tend to get punished for them. If you are a fan of any NHL team, pick any of the 32, there’s an example in recent years, I’m sure, on your team of a young promising player getting benched for a mistake an older veteran player would get a pass for.
I watched the Devils in person last night, 20-year-old Seamus Casey started the season with New Jersey and had four points in eight games, albeit in limited minutes, but has already been sent to the AHL because of his inability to limit defensive mistakes.
In the past two seasons, in Detroit, Edvinsson said he felt more pressure not to make at the NHL level, that he would be potentially be benched for it. It wasn’t until late last season that he felt he had moved past the quick ire of the coaching staff.
“I think it was being allowed to play and (make) mistakes in Grand Rapids,” Edvinsson said. “When you realize you are there to play your game and play with confidence, everything comes into place, that was the best thing. I was able to finally just use that same mentality here with Detroit.”
It brings up another one of my favorite topics, how do you approach the AHL? While the minimization of win-loss results led to Michael Brandsegg-Nygård returning to the SHL, for Edvinsson playing in a development-first AHL atmosphere put him in a spot to roll with Seider this season on the Red Wigs top pair.
It also requires a coaching staff, at the NHL level, that’s on board with being willing to develop on the fly. It also requires a GM willing to build a roster where younger players get that space.
In Detroit, I think Red Wings head coach Derek Lalonde has actually done a pretty good job advocating for younger players. The roster construction makes it difficult at time, which is a Steve Yzerman question, but Lalonde, to his credit, has allowed younger player to play larger roles — especially during the start to this season.
“You’ve got to have some patience with young players, it’s the reality of the NHL,” Lalonde said. “Today’s NHL, you know, you have to develop a little bit on the fly. Now you want to hold them accountable like any other player, but there’s going to be some patience there.”
I’m not sure about Devils coach Sheldon Keefe as an NHL tactician, but I’ve always thought he did a nice job when it came to individual player development, even in the powder keg of his prior job coaching the Toronto Maple Leafs.
When Keefe took over the job in New Jersey he inherited a team with a young defender in Luke Hughes, who made his season debut last night, and also worked early in the season with Casey, who as mentioned before is now back in the AHL.
“We play a game of mistakes, right?” Keefe said. “There’s so much happening out on the ice, and things happen so fast. There’s veteran players that you have that make mistakes, too, and it’s how do they learn from it. Can they grow from it? How do they accept teaching? That’s a big part of it, too, you know are they willing to learn, willing to listen? Willing to ask questions? Are they committed to seeking help if they aren’t getting it themselves in a timely fashion? Those are all things that sort of develop, and then you just show that you’re better the next time out, that’s really what you are looking for.”
For Hughes, who is also 21, the key to a successful rookie campaign last season was both getting the chance to make mistakes and then make up for them.
“I think that’s where my confidence came from,” Hughes said. “You grow with confidence that you’ll be treated like an older player, someone who can make a mistake and then get a chance to overcome it.”
The other thing that becomes abundantly clear when working on a story like this is that players already know more about their mistake than any coach, and certainly any media member, could ever point out.
“I think, especially for defenders, as a group you are already more critical of yourself than the coach is ever going to be,” Red Wings defender Olli Määttä said. “You make a mistake or mess up something, you’ve already beat yourself up before the coach can even say something. I think that’s the space where it depends on the coach, but the good ones will come to you is there’s something to really teach, while the others will let you learn yourself.”
In Detroit, with Edvinsson, I’ve asked several of his teammates how the Red Wings operate when the 21-year-old has a gaffe, like the several he did on opening night against the Pittsburgh Penguins.
“They don’t ride him, they don’t punish him and make him re-live it over and over again,” Ben Chiarot said. “You see it on the bench, Simon is smart, if he made a mistake he’s pretty much going to learn from it. But if there’s a moment he needs to learn from, you’ll see Bob (Boughner) take some constructive time to do it on the bench, but he’s not making Simon re-live that mistake over and over again. It’s more about is this something that we need to actually discuss to help him get better.”
And that’s the calculus a team like Detroit has to work through right now, and while you can be critical of some other areas of the team, from a growth and building perspective, I think Detroit’s done a nice job with Edvinsson thus far and Seider before him on this.
And depending on where a team is in the contention window, figuring out managing young defenders play and their confidence can often be the key to short and long-term success.
