EDMONTON — Anyone who has listened to sports radio, or watched the afternoon hockey shows, has heard the pleas.

“He’s a Top 6 guy! How can you call him up, then play him on the fourth line!?!”

Or this one: “Give him 10 games with (fill in your No. 1 centre here) and see if he can handle it?”

In Toronto, with the injury to Kirill Marchenko, they’re screaming for Gavin McKenna to get a shot on the second line with Nick Paul and William Nylander.

In Edmonton, with Zach Hyman appearing to have suffered his second concussion in a month against Detroit on Monday, the callers can’t get their head around why 22-year-old Ike Howard doesn’t step right on to Line 2, with Ryan Nugent-Hopkins and Kasperi Kapanen.

When the Hyman injury hit, Oilers head coach Mike Babcock went with a guy who was having a good game, moving Colton Dach up into Hyman’s spot. But with a day to think about it, do you think he’d change his mind?

Well, before we get into that, let’s give you a window into what a veteran coach thinks when his GM hands him a young, inexperienced, offensive player to develop.

Todd McLellan had Connor McDavid as a rookie when he coached in Edmonton. But he’s also broken in youngsters like........

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