WWYDW: David Pastrnak

It’s been a slow news week, even for the summer, and I’m officially running low on ideas.

There were some rumblings out of Boston this week that wunderkind David Pastrnak might be available for the right price. Our own J.D. Burke floated a Horvat-for-Pastrnak deal to the readers of the Army, which was met with a predictably cool reception.

So, we’ll tread into pure fantasy and idle speculation this week. What would you give up for David Pastrnak? Or maybe you think the asking price is too high? Please try to keep things at least semi-realistic.

Are there any teams that don’t participate in the summer tournaments, development camps and training? I don’t disagree that we tend to overtrain all athletes, especially junior ones and in all sports which are increasingly competitive and organized and seem a lot less fun. I notice that in college hockey too where the athletes show up on campus mid-summer and are in skating drills and scrimmages within a week. The NCAA is perhaps the weirdest with hockey of all its sports as students can commit to a school as early as 14 but most of them don’t actually show up till they finish Tier 2 or the USHL or a prep school — the average age of NCAA players for their first year is 20.6 years. All that adds up to way too much hockey for young players I think.
But I also think that’s the way the sport as a whole is trending. So it’s not really a “Canucks” thing. And if the Canucks were to hold their players out of summer activities I would guarantee the management group would be decried for being regressive and not committed to player development, mostly because it runs against the grain of what everyone else is doing. But maybe I’m wrong — is there a single pro franchise that doesn’t do this with their prospects?

The trend in hockey seems to be to telescope careers — start younger and finish younger. Seeing another guy like Gordie Howe play in his 40’s, 50’s is unlikely. Even guys like Jagr, Doan and Iginla are finding 40 is the end.
So young guys start sooner, train and play harder, but have shorter careers in all likelihood.
That makes participating in summer camps likely as part of their career trajectory. Showing up out of shape and playing into fitness won’t fly today. Having a smoke on the bench and a beer between periods would get you booted off the team these days.
So should kids play hockey year-round? Probably not. Will it happen anyway? Yes.

The way Bo Horvat vastly improved his skating in off season training is a great model for these new prospects to follow. The speed players on the small side would definitely benefit more from a structured fitness and nutrition program as well. Young players facing each other are not experiencing seasoned pro match ups. A mentoring program with veteran players like Malholtra would be a good choice instead of these exhibitions.

I agree with Gallagher on this, and I think he’s mentioned in the past that bringing players out to summer development camps is equally a waste of energy and money, and the resources could be better spent on putting together training plans for players in their home towns while letting them rest.
I’m inclined to agree. Flying players around the world and having them play in “showcases” only really teaches them to stick out rather than win games, risks injury, and creates fatigue from so much travel (yes, it even hits young people). As well, it keeps them from just getting away from the business and politics of pro sports and being young and enjoying their lives. They can still work on conditioning, as well as skating and other skills without being at a whole bunch of pressure-filled but not really meaningful events. Fatigue takes years to set in, and putting all this wear on players at this age catches up to them later on. Minimize it.

All pro hockey players play too much in North America, not just the young ones. It’s almost like the powers that be (and the coaches who are petrified of squad rotation) forget that it’s a high-speed contact sport. The game would probably be better served by more rest and better health all around. Injuries already have way too much of an impact as it is.