Last weekend, I was at a family wedding and had an interesting discussion with someone about whether Ivan Provorov will make the Flyers this season. I told the truth: he's got a shot but it's not the slam dunk so many seem to think it is. He doesn't have a job to lose. He's trying to win a job. It's a different mindset.

Many Flyers fans have already built very high expectations for the 19-year-old player. The Philadelphia Inquirer recently did a fan poll with the overwhelming majority (most of whom have likely never seen Provorov play but are simply caught up in all the hype) voting that he should be in the NHL this year.

It is inaccurate to say that Ron Hextall does not care what fans think. However, fan opinion will play no part in the decision as to where Provorov plays. The GM is not bluffing when he says that that Provorov is going to have to earn a job out of camp.

What that means: It's NOT going to be enough for him to hold his own and look like he could do the same come the regular season October. He's going to have to excel and beat out veterans on merit and not on potential. He'll have to show that he has a good chance to play significant minutes in tough situations --not at preseason pace but at the turned-up-a-notch level of the regular season.

Really, there's no much question that Provorov could open the regular season in the NHL and not embarrass himself. The question is whether, come mid-season and the stretch drive into (hopefully) the playoffs, he starts to tread water once he hits those almost inevitable choppy waves or if he adjusts and keeps on swimming.

At all costs, the Flyers want to avoid a scenario such as the one that unfolded during Luca Sbisa's NHL rookie season here; one by which they burned off the first year of his entry level contract, saw him hold his own early and then hit the "rookie wall" with a thud, and then not quite knowing what do next. His ice was drastically cut. He shuttled in and out of the lineup. He was even experimented with as a winger. Then, when the kid was thoroughly down on himself, the organization returned the rookie to his junior team. Then he was traded after the season; albeit as a big piece of the puzzle to land Chris Pronger.

Quite frankly, the handling of Sbisa was as big of a development bungle as the organization has ever had. In many ways, Sbisa never truly recovered his developmental momentum. Ever since then, he rapidly became more a reclamation project/ salvage job to be anything more than a marginal sixth or seventh NHL defenseman in other organizations.

Thankfully, lessons have been learned from it. The Flyers organization's understanding and attention to detail on the player development side has advanced eons in the last eight years. The development side is now focused upon every bit as much as the scouting side on the front end of bringing a player into the organization.

Likewise, there are also lessons to be learned from the Flyers careers of players such as Joni Pitkänen and Janne Niinimaa, where there was clear-cut star potential but, for various reasons, there ended up being more inconsistency than excellence. Their careers were decent, but could have and probably should have been a notch above that. Incidentally, Pitkänen, now retired due to a career-ending heel injury, celebrates his 33rd birthday today.

The Flyers want to give Provorov every chance to come as close as possible to reaching his development ceiling. The decision that has to be made is whether he seems ready now -- actually playing among and against NHL players -- to perform at a consistently high level for a full NHL season.

It is NOT a slam dunk that he is ready to clear the bar as high as Hextall has set it, and the bar will not be lowered to appease the fans or the media. He might be. He might not be. And those who say, "Well, he can't be worse than (fill in the blank with the name of the speaker's designated blue line role-playing whipping boy)" are missing the point.

First of all, the Flyers don't want to use a lowest common denominator standard in their development process. They have a longer-term goal in mind.

Secondly, a teenage player regardless of where he is drafted or what he's done in a junior league or the World Junior Championships most certainly CAN be worse if he's not ready for task. That is how hundreds of players who once had star potential end up as role players; they find a niche of a couple of things they are good at, simplify the rest of their game so as not to be a liability, and this becomes what keeps them in the NHL.

If, at the end of the preseason, the answer is "yes" to the question of whether Provorov would benefit THIS year from a year in the American Hockey League, he's not going to make the Flyers this season and will instead be back in Brandon for the Wheat Kings. He's also most likely NOT going to get a nine-game trial in the NHL. He'll either be deemed ready and spend the whole year with the Flyers or else caution will exercised even if others find it frustrating.

Like it or hate it, but that's how it is going to be. There aren't a lot of Aaron Ekblads out there. Defense is a very hard position to play in the NHL. A defenseman could have 20 solid shifts, one bad one and another couple where someone else's mistakes lead to goal or long shifts in the defensive zone. At the end of the night, he's answering questions about his "subpar" game.

People frequently bring up Shayne Gostisbehere's Calder Trophy finalist season from last year, but it is an apples-to-oranges comparison because Ghost was older, had a very clear sense of his game's strengths and very specific things to work on. Provorov, for all of his magnificent potential and advanced hockey sense, is still a teenager.

The reason why Hextall said last year that it was a relatively easy decision to have Shayne Gostisbehere start the season with the Phantoms was that he did not have a good camp without the puck on his stick; in part because he had missed most of the previous season with a knee injury and in larger part because Hextall felt had to make some tweaks -- not overhauls, but fine-tunes -- that were a little less difficult to make at the American Hockey League pace.

To reiterate, in Gostisbehere's case, it really wasn't a development issue or a proven game-preparation regimen so much as an adjustment issue. With Provorov at age 19, his demonstrated progression of development since last year, his preparations to play and his ability to make in-game and between-game adjustments will all be put to the test.

There are are very few weaknesses in Provorov's game. He plays the game the right way, with and without the puck, and can make difficult plays look easy. He's not flashy but he is highly effective most nights and does not need to score or set up goals on a particular night -- although he does plenty of that, too -- to make a positive impact on the game for his team.

It's not that Provorov is immune from gaffes. All players, especially young defensemen, make their share. Anyone who micro-analyzes the player to expect perfect shift after perfect shift is setting themselves up for disappointment, because even Norris Trophy winning defensemen in the NHL can't adhere to that standard. Instead, look at the big picture.

In comparison to most of his peers -- even fellow first-round picks -- Provorov makes NHL-caliber reads and reactions not just some of the time but, rather, far more often than not. The player who returned from an excellent performance at the World Junior Championships elevated his game to a higher level on both sides of the puck.

Now he has to take that to the next level.

Provorov entered Flyers camp with "NHL-ready" hype last September but did not demonstrate readiness. The Flyers believe he's developed significantly from that point, but the test will be in the demonstration of it.

As long as Provorov continues on the path of the norms he showed from November onward last season until seeming to run low on gas in the Memorial Cup -- which was understandable because he had played of hockey with massive minutes not only for Brandon but also for Team Russia at the World Junior Championships -- he will make things tough in a good way on Dave Hakstol and Ron Hextall in the next few weeks.

Is there reason to be excited about his ceiling and his long-term potential to approach it? Yes, because Provorov's physical tools and style of play are of the type that tend to translate well to the NHL when properly nurtured.

Are there any guarantees? No.

Final caveat: Fans want instant results, which is understandable, since they are the ones paying money and investing emotions. It is frustrating to always hear patience preached. It's understandable. However, Hextall's job is to assess Provorov based on a plan where this season is part of the consideration but the long term process of building a genuine Stanley Cup contender is the overriding goal.

Those expecting Provorov to step in and be a generational player, especially at age 19, are setting themselves up for disappointment and the player to go from savior to target for criticism. There's a segment of the fan base for whom even a home run isn't enough. They want grand slams even when the bases aren't loaded.

For an example, just trace the discourse about Claude Giroux. You will find that the same types who want to take away his captaincy or call him "overrated" -- despite the fact he is closing in rapidly on ranking among the all-time point leaders in franchise history by the time he's about 32 -- are the same ones who were hailing him a savior in 2012.

Those who feel Giroux should be replaced as captain demonstrate their utter cluelessness about the team dynamic and the fact he did an excellent job as captain last year, because he was indispensable to how the team started to get on board with a 200-foot commitment to Dave Hakstol's system (which, by the way, came with sacrifices that cut into his point production because of all the penalty killing and back checking Giroux did).

How does this relate to Provorov? It relates because, while the Flyers themselves have taken corrective steps -- not trading away so many draft picks and instead collecting assets, being over-aggressive in rushing their better prospects through the development phases -- fans themselves will not change.

Within the blink of a couple seasons of growing pains, Provorov could easily go from today's can't-miss super prospect who "needs to be in the NHL right now" to tomorrow's Pitkänen ("trade him, he's a turnover machine and a pylon, and the Flyers should have drafted Player X instead"), because that's just the nature of fandom and the cycle of prospect hype versus the reality of the percentage of players that hit their ceiling.

The Flyers can't and won't get caught up in all that. They are trying to provide the tools by which Provorov will have the best possible chance to approach his ceiling. The rest comes down to circumstance including avoidance of major injury, the caliber of the team itself and the surrounding pieces. It's an inexact science.

Provorov has potential to become a consistently solid all-around NHL defenseman, both with and without the puck and, in combination, to play effectively in all game situations. Such defensemen are quite hard to find, and that's why the organization is high on him.

For now, though, he's an aspiring NHL rookie and he still has a lot to demonstrate before he's in the Flyers lineup this season much less to to be a contender for NHL individual honors.

If Provorov makes the team, it is going to be an exciting sign because it means he will have passed some mighty tough early tests. If not, it won't be the end of the world. Last year, people misinterpreted the Flyers' ultra-quick signing of Provorov to an entry-level contract. It had nothing to do with putting him right in the NHL lineup and everything to do with commitment to his development.

One year later, that part has not changed.

Join the Discussion: » 125 Comments » Post New Comment

» Practice Day, Ersson, Jay Greenberg, A Personal Note

» Flyers Gameday: Game 12 vs. BOS

» Wrap: Brink Lifts Flyers over Blues, 2-1

» Game 11 Preview: Flyers vs. STL

» Wrap: Flyers Earn Painstaking 2-0 Win in Boston