It is said in just about every sport, but it is more true in hockey than any other. The playoffs truly are a different beast. They are a second season and value experience.
Youth is rarely served in the NHL playoffs. Inexperienced teams usually have to pay their dues before winning. As talented as they were, younger teams like the Edmonton Oilers of the 80’s and the Pittsburgh Penguins of the late 2000’s had to take a few lumps first.
The Oilers didn’t just unseat the old guard New York Islanders. They had to experience losing before they could go on to become one of the best teams of all time. The Sydney Crosby Pens had to go through the same thing before eventually taking down the Detroit Red Wings in a rematch.
The same usually holds true of players as well. You can’t prepare someone for the NHL playoffs if they haven’t experienced it before.
Ask Vladimir Tarasenko. He only played one game in the postseason in his first round with the St. Louis Blues. He then scored four goals in six games in the next time around. Despite those goal numbers, even the second attempt was difficult because everyone knew to focus on him and he had almost no space.
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Enter Robby Fabbri into this argument. Assuming he returns to health before or at least by the start of the playoffs, I do not believe he will experience these postseason growing pains.
While Fabbri is extremely talented, a lot of that has to due to his circumstances.
Firstly, he’s not THE guy. Tarasenko and whoever lines up next to him is going to be getting the top lines pitted against them. They’re going to get the top defensive pairings. That opens up other opportunities for other lines, including Fabbri.
Secondly, the Blues are not a young team. They aren’t a totally veteran team either. There is a great mix. So much so that neither talented rookies or skilled veterans are going to be looked at for the sole production.
This is one of the big keys for Fabbri. He’s not playing with two other rookies or even young players. Fabbri gets to play with two players who have a lot of postseason experience. Paul Stastny has been through the playoff wars and Troy Brouwer has even won a Stanley Cup.
Fabbri might still be the focus of whatever defenders he faces, but he doesn’t have linemates that don’t know how to deal with it. Brouwer and Stastny know what it takes to win and will be able to take the pressure off Fabbri. Fabbri will be able to focus on finding spaces and scoring instead of realizing the daunting pressure that the postseason can present.
While Fabbri has gone cold for stretches this season, nobody could have predicted he would be as good as he has been in his rookie year. If not for Chicago’s Artemi Panarin having it wrapped up, there might even be a few chirps of Fabbri for the Calder trophy.
In 71 games played, Fabbri has 18 goals and 37 points. To put that in perspective, everyone in Blues’ Nation considers Tarasenko to be a rising star, if not a bona fide star, already. Tarasenko had 22 goals and 43 points in his first full year (64 games).
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Nobody is saying he’s going to be the next Tarasenko, but he’s going to produce. In his final playoff run in the OHL he scored 13 goals in 16 games. It doesn’t matter if that’s juniors or not, that’s impressive.
He’s got everything on his side to do it for the Blues. He won’t be facing the top lines of whichever team he faces. He can focus on scoring because his linemates already have the playoff savvy to get him into good positions and worry about doing the dirty work that the playoffs demand and he just knows how to score.
Most times, experience is valuable and needed to succeed in the playoffs. This is one of those rare cases where being inexperienced is valuable. Fabbri doesn’t have any of the baggage the Blues normally do going into the playoffs. He hasn’t been here. He can just put his head down, go out there and flourish. And he will.