In the Toronto Marlies weight room at what’s now the Coca-Cola Coliseum there’s a large poster on the wall visible to all the players, staff and media. Its message is simple, but an important one. It explains the concept of the aggregation of marginal gains, which is a fancy way of saying “if you just do a little bit more, or a little bit less, those things compound and you’ll end up further in that direction than you’d have ever believed.”
It looks like this:
In the hyper-competitive world of pro sports, there’s basically no more relevant message. We constantly hear about guys like Patrick Marleau who’s defied the odds by being able to be healthy and still contributing in his late 30s. We also hear about how he takes care of himself, whether it be with nutrition, in the gym or with rest. Longevity and self-care tend to go hand-in-hand.
Similarly, there are no shortage of stories about players with high ceilings that flame out, much to the bewilderment of those who know how much talent they have. Sometimes it’s a lack of opportunity, sometimes it’s luck. Others … well, sometimes the player chose the wrong side of the 1 percent a little too often.
There’s an interesting phenomenon when highly touted players are drafted and end up in the minors for developmental reasons. One, they’re generally showered with praise and promise (which may or may not go to their head), but two, they’re generally allotted a crazy long leash and tons of opportunity. As most agree, they have to play and be allowed to make mistakes to learn from them, so there’s a lot of logic there.
A problem with this, though, is that some players tend to feel … let’s say overly safe, since invincible is a bit much. They can do whatever they want and their ice time doesn’t suffer. While that risky style of play can often lead to goals in their own net, armed with their own offensive production and continued playing time, they can get comfortable.
(Sidebar: You know your favourite top prospect who’s been getting benched because the coach is an idiot and not giving him a chance and if he’d only give him a chance … there’s a chance that coach is trying to combat this and get the guy to truly work, training that prospect like a puppy.)
What many prospects don’t realize, is that the moment they show up at training camp, their hourglass gets flipped, and the sands start slipping through to the other side. They don’t realize that when those grains of sand run out, the cushy gig ends and boy can it happen quickly.
Young people in general aren’t too great at planning long term. It’s tough to believe that when you’re 19-21 in the American Hockey League, that one day you won’t be the young rookie with the long leash anymore. It’s tough to see that at some point, the coddled young seed has to become a tree that bears fruit, or the organization will throw you in the compost. In turn, it’s tough to understand that that 1 percent aggregation of marginal gains matters, because things have been going well for them so far, so what’s the big deal?
Even if you’re young and having some success, putting in the work in today’s NHL is more important than ever. If you’re handed a book to read, read it. If Patrick Marleau is doing five minutes of extra cardio, join him. If you’re travelling late into the night with a game the next day, put down the phone and get some sleep.
On Tuesday, the Toronto Marlies traded Andrew Nielsen to the Calgary Flames organization for Morgan Klimchuk. What I don’t want, is for everything I wrote above to be ascribed to Nielsen, as those are generalizations. But since he’s obviously the catalyst for this piece, some of those notes do apply.
As a rookie, the Leafs could not have been more excited to have Nielsen. He’s a 6’4” left shot D-man, has a bomb of a shot and had/has (depending on where you sit) a ceiling that seemed/seems extremely high. With that, he was given ample opportunity, including PP1 time, which led to him scoring 39 points from the back end as a rookie, which looked really, really good.
Only, he didn’t.
His speed was far below the AHL level, which is a limitation nearly impossible to overcome. He made some poor decisions, seemed hesitant to put himself in situations where he could look bad (which means sagging gaps) and just generally had a hard time. Until the power play, when he’d go bomb another one in the net.
Nielsen is a nice guy who treats those around him well. But I do get the sense that that top-end prospect entitlement pulled him away from putting in that 1 percent that makes the difference and that’s part of the reason it didn’t pan out for him in Toronto.
When I was the video coach for the Marlies, I’d have all the players shifts loaded onto iPads for the bus after the game. The players who most frequently came to me to see how they played: Connor Brown, Zach Hyman, Travis Dermott and Nikita Soshnikov. That’s one of those 1 percent things – while other guys are playing cards, they were watching the game again. Who knows how much of a difference it made. But coincidentally, things sure panned out OK for those guys.
When that hourglass gets flipped on those unassuming top prospects, and they’re trying to get better and get familiar with the pro game, a harsh reality looms. That if they don’t become the tree that quickly bears fruit, the team gets to draft seven new players the upcoming summer. And guess what? One of them is going to be a shiny new seed to be coddled, who might just play the same position, who might just bump them out of their cushy role, forcing themto swim upstream.
If you don’t put in that 1 percent, get better, and you don’t take noticeable strides, the next year you can find yourself on PP2, with a worse D-partner, and with worse numbers and ice time really fast. That’s a scary thing with all professional sports – someone is always coming for your job, and the window in which anything is handed to you and not earned is really short.
The Marlies have talented, young offensive D in Timothy Liljgren and Rasmus Sandin, they have proven vets, most of whom could handle NHL minutes, and just like that, Nielsen became expendable.
He didn’t do anything wrong necessarily. It’s a tough business, and the reality is, you have to be better than the guy next to you, and better than them fast. The AHL is only a developmental league insofar as you’re among the most valuable assets worth developing, and after that you’re in for an uphill climb.
The Marlies don’t have that poster up to decorate the walls. In that league, you’re climbing all over one another trying to get to the top, trying to be the person who gets to slap an extra “0” on their paycheck and sleep at the Ritz instead of the HoJo.
Nielsen is a talented guy who could certainly take the trade as a wake-up call and use the fresh start to push himself closer to the NHL. But to me, he’s a great lesson for all young players who have been given multiple chances in the American League. The next guy is coming along faster than most realize. That 1 percent – whether that means more time in the gym, more time after practice, or passing on fast food for some bland ol’ chicken breast – it adds up.
(Top photo: Graig Abel/Getty Images)
