Giving Carter Yakemchuk a Chance Makes Sense

There’s going to be an interesting little battle when the Ottawa Senators open training camp. Carter Yakemchuk is expected to be fighting for a third-pairing job, and there's a more experienced player, Nikolas Matinpalo, standing in his way. On the surface, this sounds pretty ordinary. Young defenceman gets a chance. Veteran defenceman tries to keep his job. Somebody wins.

But I think there's a little more to it than that.

Yakemchuk isn’t a finished blueliner, but there’s plenty to like.

Yakemchuk is 20 years old. He's still learning how to defend at the NHL level, and nobody should pretend he's a finished product. That's part of the problem with putting young defencemen into the league. Mistakes are going to happen, and mistakes by defencemen can be pretty noticeable.

But sometimes you have to let young players make those mistakes. Yakemchuk already got a tiny taste of NHL hockey last season, and he made an impression. In his first five NHL appearances, counting the regular season and playoffs, he scored a goal and added three assists.

That's not enough to tell us he's ready to become a top-four defenceman. It is enough to make you wonder what might happen if Ottawa gives him some real opportunity.

Now the Senators have an interesting decision.

Matinpalo might be the safer choice. He's older, more experienced and presumably less likely to make the kind of mistakes that come with putting a 20-year-old defenceman into an NHL lineup. But what's the upside? With Yakemchuk, there might be quite a bit more.

Ottawa could protect him a little by giving him sheltered minutes, putting him in situations where his offensive instincts can help, and not asking him to suddenly become a shutdown defenceman. If they did, maybe he starts figuring things out. That's really what development is supposed to look like.

The Senators have a chance to find out what Yakemchuk can become. And that’s probably what makes training camp worth watching.

If Yakemchuk struggles badly, Ottawa can always choose the safer option.

But if he shows that his offensive game can translate and that he's learning quickly enough defensively, the Senators might have a pretty good reason to take the chance. Sometimes the best young players don't arrive completely ready.

Sometimes you have to give them a little room to become ready. And Yakemchuk might be one of those players.