The difference in skill level between junior and the AHL is pretty large. The difference between the AHL and the NHL is that squared. Even watching a Hershey Bears (top team in the AHL) game and a Hurricanes game, the difference is immense. While Kevin Marshall and Marc-Andre Bourdon have NHL-level raw talent — the Flyers have been perfectly clear they believe that to be the case — they lack the strength, the conditioning, and the mental skill to keep up with an game. They’re still developing as players. They’re working on their skating mostly, but they’re also working on their passing, their shooting, their positioning, etc. Their intuition (“what’s the smartest play to try and negate this 2-on-1?”) is not yet fast enough nor is it correct enough to be effective NHL players, especially at a position as critical as defense. They’re also not strong enough yet to play a physical sport against some of the grittiest guys in the world who know how to stay on their feet and knock you off yours — it’s imperative to be able to prevent yourself from being bumped off the puck. Luckily, if you have the raw talent, hard-work and experience can make all those issues go away. Sometimes, it takes a year or two or three in the AHL to not just make the transition to the AHL, but then start to excel in AHL play. Once you start to do that, it’s only a matter of time before the parent club calls you up (see: Bartulis, Oskars).

As for Hedman, Doughty, Johnson, etc., for whatever reason, those guys have such strength, such mental skills and such talent that they can make the leap immediately. Imagine playing college hockey, and trying to skate around Chris Pronger, who’s somehow joined your opposition. It’s kind of like that; thus why they’re drafted so high.

You can stick an Andreas Nodl or Jared Ross in the lineup at any given time, and as long as they know how to hold their own in their zone and don’t give the puck away, they’ll be fine. You stick a Danny Syvret in there, and you see what happened (the first time around).

Now, generally, the system shouldn’t a problem. I know Hitch made sure the Flyers and Phantoms ran the same systems. I don’t know if Stevens did that, but even if he did, I doubt Laviolette’s had the opportunity to explain his system in-depth enough to Gilbert and Kjell so that they could re-teach it to the Phantoms.

The CBA just lists it very vaguely and leaves it entirely up to the NHL’s discretion as I recall.

But my impression is it wouldn’t be a problem. What they’re saying is “we’ve got three injured dmen on the roster, we need permission to add an extra healthy dman”.

I don’t think the NHL has any interest in forcing a team to waive a player (as would be the case with Cote).