This thread is awesome. 90% of you guys whine about how AV f'd McIlrath. On and on about how good he is, how AV is an a** and is ruining McIlrath, how he'll be claimed of course. The whole league passes on McIlrath for nothing, and it doesn't prove anything to some of you. Funny stuff. Of course it proves something...wake up.
McIlrath is not good. He is in the old mold of the NHL where big slower guys ruled. He cannot keep up with the game today. That's reality, and was clearly shown by the whole league passing on him for nothing.
I hope he goes down and improves and maybe can make an impact at some point, but right now he is not good enough. And that is not on AV, or Gorton, or anyone...it is simply reality.
I'll be the first to admit I was wrong thinking he'd get claimed. I never said it was a sure thing but that was my opinion. And I was wrong.
My frustration with AV and this whole situation wasn't that McIlrath was a can't miss prospect here to bring us salvation, and that AV was refusing to play the next coming of Scott Stevens. It wasnt even where we drafted him and who was still on the board at the time.
If I recall correctly McIlrath has only had one stretch in his career when he played over 10 games in a row. That was last year, during which (at least for part of it) he was paired with Yandle. By almost all measures, that was our best pairing. Even Brooksie wrote about it and he hates everything. McIlrath handled himself very well and, most importantly, proved himself to be a far more reliable option than Girardi at that time. I think we can all agree on that: McIlrath was clearly playing better than 1 leg Girardi. He didnt look too slow or not good enough for the NHL game. He looked perfectly comfortable. He wasnt an all pro by any means, but he was very serviceable as a middle pairing guy.
But then AV got Girardi back, banished McIlrath to the press box (or gave him 5 minutes of ice time), trotted out an inferior line up and watched teams skate circles around a hobbled Girardi. The net result was that McIlrath was out of the line up and in the press box during one of the most important seasons for his development, even though he deserved to be on the ice.
Teams knew his situation going into this year: We had to play him or we'd lose him. The rumors are that we had been shopping him since the draft, so now he was on the scout's radar. They didnt see much of him last year, and all the reports are that he was watched closely this preseason. And what happened? He had a DREADFUL camp and looked like shit in preseason games, which was when teams were watching him. Is part of that because he was pressing and trying to do too much, confused as to what else he needed to show to get in the line up? Or maybe part of it is that he spent an important year in his development mostly watching and not playing .
That is speculation on my part. What is not speculation is that he was a better option than Girardi last year in almost everybody's eyes except AV. Not getting him out there very well may have had negative effects on his game and mindset, affecting his play in camp and preseason and leading him to go unclaimed. Because those posters saying he was not good are correct, when it comes to this year. But a lot happened before that that I think led to this situation.
Now, you add in his style of play and the overall change in the nature of the game, and teams aren't going to take a chance on a guy like that who hasn't shown much. Teams will take flyers on guys like Clendening or Justin Shultz with the pens before they'll take a flyer on an old school guy.
That's my essay on McIlrath. He was never going to be an all star but I think he could have been a contributor in the mold of Sauer.
