Thomas Drance

Like, there's been a lot of that sort of veteran... Pandering is... It's not quite pandering, but, like, accommodation.

preference, right?

Where you sort of, and we see this in like the National Hockey Federation's a lot too, right?

One of the things that I thought made Canada the best on-form team at the Olympics was they were just like, Macklin Celebrini, let's go, right?

And arguably, Canada would have been even better positioned if they'd done it too with Matthew Schaefer, right?

But like,

when you promote young players through your organization, it holds for national federations, but also NHL teams.

When you promote young players, when you really entrust them, when you load them up with minutes, when you make them sort of responsible and how you balance that is like one of the hardest things to manage in the sport of hockey.

And I would say the Kings didn't do a good enough job turning that team over to Byfield and Clark and company when it became clear that they were that team's best players.

Like it's still, you know, a six on five situation.

You're still getting Kopitar over the ice, over the bench, even though he's not the best option in terms of you needing a goal.

right?

A dowdy on the point in those situations.

He's no longer the best option.

You have Brant Clark, right?

Like I thought Jim Hiller did a really poor job, frankly.

And I think the Kings organizationally did a, did a, at least at best mid job of managing those dynamics internally across the last few years.

And so entrusting that guy to do it with Austin Matthews seems like a big bet on a guy that I don't know, sort of covered himself in glory, right?

in managing those dynamics in his last stint.

Yeah.