Rambling thought I’ve had about Delly is that I truly hope he’s given a roll to learn and develop into rather than being “Dickensened” into playing all the rolls up and down the line up but never developing the parts of his game this team could really use like his transitioning and forechecking. His personality seems to be to please and do as asked which is great but he started down a slippery slope being asked by the wet blanket coach to be a pesky younger Glendening. Flashes of remembering his actual talent showed last year and he was certainly not the 13th best playoff option so your concern over PDBs view of him seems prudent.
That's a great comparison. I think people forget just how good Dickinson was considered when he was coming up: not only his big AHL rookie year, but he was constantly mentioned in rumor mills as a player teams wanted from Dallas. Dellandrea is more nuanced, of course, but you're right. It's also possible he's just one of those William Karlsson/Marchessault types: just a victim of the depth chart.
Maybe I’m a pessimist when it comes to short term Dallas team building strategy... long term I am a fan of Nills plans and management if he could just fight the urges of old hockey men a bit better and stick to his larger goals but that’s a digression and a shitton of words for another time.
Point being it’d be fantastic to get a Wild Bill clone out of him (I think that’s a great ceiling for him) BUT Karlsson had to be an inferior 1C to learn the O side so that now he can be a stellar modern 3C, Nill hasn’t shown the want to develop that sort of thing rather curmudgeonly thinking (maybe coach influenced) the hard to find O talent will develop out of and after learning to be a role playing “2”way player. That “2” way issue you harp about has bothered me for years and may be the last remaining dinosaur development thought to leave the NHL, these guys just never got what Al Arbour said about Bossy... “I can teach a player to check, I can’t teach him to score goals.” Delly has the toolkit to be a Wild Bill, as long as they explain to him that they want him to be more than a Glendening.
Rambling thought I’ve had about Delly is that I truly hope he’s given a roll to learn and develop into rather than being “Dickensened” into playing all the rolls up and down the line up but never developing the parts of his game this team could really use like his transitioning and forechecking. His personality seems to be to please and do as asked which is great but he started down a slippery slope being asked by the wet blanket coach to be a pesky younger Glendening. Flashes of remembering his actual talent showed last year and he was certainly not the 13th best playoff option so your concern over PDBs view of him seems prudent.
That's a great comparison. I think people forget just how good Dickinson was considered when he was coming up: not only his big AHL rookie year, but he was constantly mentioned in rumor mills as a player teams wanted from Dallas. Dellandrea is more nuanced, of course, but you're right. It's also possible he's just one of those William Karlsson/Marchessault types: just a victim of the depth chart.
Maybe I’m a pessimist when it comes to short term Dallas team building strategy... long term I am a fan of Nills plans and management if he could just fight the urges of old hockey men a bit better and stick to his larger goals but that’s a digression and a shitton of words for another time.
Point being it’d be fantastic to get a Wild Bill clone out of him (I think that’s a great ceiling for him) BUT Karlsson had to be an inferior 1C to learn the O side so that now he can be a stellar modern 3C, Nill hasn’t shown the want to develop that sort of thing rather curmudgeonly thinking (maybe coach influenced) the hard to find O talent will develop out of and after learning to be a role playing “2”way player. That “2” way issue you harp about has bothered me for years and may be the last remaining dinosaur development thought to leave the NHL, these guys just never got what Al Arbour said about Bossy... “I can teach a player to check, I can’t teach him to score goals.” Delly has the toolkit to be a Wild Bill, as long as they explain to him that they want him to be more than a Glendening.