Grachev Staying for Now

As per Jesse Spector, coach John Tortorella has stated that Grachev will be staying in the NHL:

“He’s gonna play,” Tortorella said. “We’re gonna keep him here right now, and I want to see more of him, and hopefully he can keep on growing, and as long as he protects the puck, I think the other parts of his game will come into play because I think he’ll get more minutes.”

Grachev was solid in his hustle and using the body in his debut on Friday and got rewarded with slightly more playing time on Saturday against Toronto.  It is not surprising that he is staying in the lineup right now as there is no future for White so leaving him or Boogaard as scratches right now depending on matchup does no damage to the club.  I expect that when Gaborik comes back in a few weeks Grachev will be sent back to Hartford just because I dont see another logical scratch that Grachev is better than and he still needs more playing time if he is going to develop into a higher level forward they were hoping for him to be down the line.  I still believe this move is partially because of the lack of developing going on in Hartford so if he gets maybe 3 weeks at the NHL level in games, practices and coaching sessions they feel it will advance him and maybe also spark higher level play from him in Hartford to want to get back to the NHL.