“Player development is rarely linear” is a thing that you hear said about young players in all kinds of sport. It’s a saying that is largely trotted out when a young player who at one point seemed to be on a clear path to long-term success hits a roadblock and has a stretch where something goes wrong, and it’s used in that context as a reminder that players sometimes take longer to reach certain points in their developments than they do with others. These things don’t tend to go in a straight line, and different players may handle the same situations in different ways.
Philadelphia Flyers 25 Under 25: How good is Robert Hagg, and how good can he be?
